Racism, Xenophobia, and Redistribution

Lee, Woojin; Roemer, John E.; Straeten, Karine Van der

doi:10.1162/jeea.2006.4.2-3.446

Cited by 28 publications

(22 citation statements)

References 4 publications

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“…We have already commented several times on the role of these compositional externalities on preferences. We close this survey by taking note of an interesting research programme developed by John Roemer and colleagues that seeks to explicitly build these considerations into formal political economy models (Roemer and Van Der Straeten, 2005, 2006; Lee and Roemer, 2006; Woojin Lee et al. , 2006; Roemer et al.…”

Section: Welfare and Political Economymentioning

confidence: 99%

Bridging Trade Theory and Labour Econometrics: The Effects of International Migration*

Gaston

Nelson

2011

Journal of Economic Surveys

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Section: Welfare and Political Economymentioning

confidence: 99%

Bridging Trade Theory and Labour Econometrics: The Effects of International Migration*

Gaston

Nelson

2011

Journal of Economic Surveys

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“…In a recent book, Roemer et al (2007) study the U.S., but also three European countries: Denmark (see also Roemer and van der Straeten 2006), France, and the United Kingdom. We choose not to review these studies here: for a short review of their main results, see Lee et al (2006), and for a non-technical review (in French) summing up their results for France, see Roemer et al (2005). We rather choose to present here two more recent contributions for Europe, using data from the European Social Survey and from the German Socio-Economic Panel (section 3.1.2).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Ethnic Diversity and Attitudes Towards Redistribution: A Review of the Literature

Stichnoth

Straeten

2009

SSRN Journal

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Die Dis cus si on Pape rs die nen einer mög lichst schnel len Ver brei tung von neue ren For schungs arbei ten des ZEW. Die Bei trä ge lie gen in allei ni ger Ver ant wor tung der Auto ren und stel len nicht not wen di ger wei se die Mei nung des ZEW dar.Dis cus si on Papers are inten ded to make results of ZEW research prompt ly avai la ble to other eco no mists in order to encou ra ge dis cus si on and sug gesti ons for revi si ons. The aut hors are sole ly respon si ble for the con tents which do not neces sa ri ly repre sent the opi ni on of the ZEW.Download this ZEW Discussion Paper from our ftp server:ftp://ftp.zew.de/pub/zew-docs/dp/dp09036.pdf Non-technical summaryThere is a large literature on the costs and benefits of immigration within a given system of social security. More recently, economists have begun to address a related question: does immigration and, more generally, ethnic diversity change this system of social security in turn?A number of empirical studies suggest that ethnic diversity does indeed matter for the extent of redistribution. First, there is evidence that actual public spending is associated with the degree of ethnic diversity. Second, studies that attempt to explore the mechanisms behind this aggregate relationship have found that individual attitudes and behaviour are affected by ethnic diversity.The purpose of this paper is to survey this empirical literature. We cover the studies that have appeared since the survey by Alesina and La Ferrara (2005) in the Journal of Economic Literature. In particular, we review the fast-growing literature that uses controlled experiments to study the effects of ethnic diversity on redistribution.Our main conclusion from this survey is that although numerous studies document a negative and statistically significant relationship, most of these studies do not point to a quantitatively important role for ethnic diversity in shaping natives' preferences for redistribution. In most studies, the association is much weaker than for other factors such as own income (current or expected) or beliefs about the role of effort versus luck in determining this income.Moreover, it seems that the sizeable negative association between ethnic diversity and support for redistribution that is sometimes found in U.S. studies does not generalize to Canada or Europe. However, the evidence for countries other than the U.S. is scarce so far, and there is certainly need for further research. Das Wichtigste in Kürze (German summary) AbstractWe review the empirical literature that studies the effect of ethnic diversity on the welfare state and on individual attitudes. The outcome variables that we cover in the survey are on the one hand public spending, and on the other hand individual attitudes and behaviour, including charity spending. We also review the fast-growing literature that uses experiments to study the effects of ethnic diversity. Many of these studies have appeared since the pioneering survey by Alesina and La Ferrara (2005a), and have not been covered by a s...

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“…The interaction is also difficult to square with an even more sophisticated preference argument that allows for a varying gap between the preferences of the median voter and the median politician that might emerge from a two‐dimensional policy space, as in Lee, Roemer, and Straeten (). If anything, under such a model, we would expect the gap between the median voter and politician to be smallest in the most xenophobic municipalities since local voters there care most intensely about the immigration dimension.…”

Section: Why Do Immigrants Fare Worse Under Direct Democracy?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Does Direct Democracy Hurt Immigrant Minorities? Evidence from Naturalization Decisions in Switzerland

Hainmueller

Hangartner

2019

American J Political Sci

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Do minorities fare worse under direct democracy than under representative democracy? We provide new evidence by studying naturalization requests of immigrants in Switzerland that were typically decided with referendums in each municipality. Using panel data from about 1,400 municipalities for the 1991–2009 period, we exploit Federal Court rulings that forced municipalities to transfer the decisions to their elected municipality councils. We find that naturalization rates surged by about 60% once politicians rather than citizens began deciding on naturalization applications. Whereas voters in referendums face no cost of arbitrarily rejecting qualified applicants based on discriminatory preferences, politicians in the council are constrained to formally justify rejections and may be held accountable by judicial review. Consistent with this mechanism, the increase in naturalization rates caused by switching from direct to representative democracy is much stronger for more marginalized immigrant groups and in areas where voters are more xenophobic or where judicial review is more salient.

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Racism, Xenophobia, and Redistribution

Cited by 28 publications

References 4 publications

Bridging Trade Theory and Labour Econometrics: The Effects of International Migration*

Bridging Trade Theory and Labour Econometrics: The Effects of International Migration*

Ethnic Diversity and Attitudes Towards Redistribution: A Review of the Literature

Does Direct Democracy Hurt Immigrant Minorities? Evidence from Naturalization Decisions in Switzerland

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