From individual attitudes towards migrants to migration policy outcomes: Theory and evidence

Anna Maria Mayda and Giovanni Facchini

No 6835, CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers

Abstract: In democratic societies individual attitudes of voters represent the foundations of policy making. We start by analyzing patterns in public opinion on migration and find that, across countries of different income levels, only a small minority of voters favour more open migration policies. Next we investigate the determinants of voters' preferences towards immigration from a theoretical and empirical point of view. Our analysis supports the role played by economic channels (labour market, welfare state, efficiency gains) using both the 1995 and 2003 rounds of the ISSP survey. The second part of the paper examines how attitudes translate into a migration policy outcome. We consider two alternative political-economy frameworks: the median voter and the interest groups model. On the one hand, the restrictive policies in place across destination countries and the very low fractions of voters favouring immigration are consistent with the median voter framework. At the same time, given the extent of individual-level opposition to immigration that appears in the data, it is somewhat puzzling, in a median-voter perspective, that migration flows take place at all. Interest-groups dynamics have the potential to explain this puzzle. We find evidence from regression analysis supporting both political-economy frameworks.

Keywords: Immigration; Immigration policy; Interest groups; Median voter; Political economy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F22 J61 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2008-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm, nep-lab, nep-lam, nep-mig and nep-pol
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (132)

Downloads: (external link)
https://cepr.org/publications/DP6835 (application/pdf)
CEPR Discussion Papers are free to download for our researchers, subscribers and members. If you fall into one of these categories but have trouble downloading our papers, please contact us at subscribers@cepr.org

Related works:
Journal Article: From individual attitudes towards migrants to migration policy outcomes: Theory and evidence (2008)
Working Paper: From Individual Attitudes towards Migrants to Migration Policy Outcomes. Theory and Evidence (2008)
Working Paper: From Individual Attitudes towards Migrants to Migration Policy Outcomes: Theory and Evidence (2008)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:6835

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
https://cepr.org/publications/DP6835

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers Centre for Economic Policy Research, 33 Great Sutton Street, London EC1V 0DX.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().