Attitudes Towards Immigration: Does Economic Self-Interest Matter?

Nikolaj Malchow-Møller, Jakob Munch, Sanne Schroll () and Jan Skaksen
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Sanne Schroll: University of Southern Denmark

No 2283, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: In this paper, we re-examine the role of economic self-interest in shaping people’s attitudes towards immigration, using data from the European Social Survey 2002/2003. Compared to the existing literature, there are two main contributions of the present paper. First, we develop a more powerful test of the hypothesis that a positive relationship between education and attitudes towards immigration reflects economic self-interest in the labour market. Second, we develop an alternative and more direct test of whether economic self-interest matters for people’s attitudes towards immigration. We find that while the "original" relationship between education and attitudes found in the literature is unlikely to reflect economic self-interest, there is considerable evidence of economic self-interest when using the more direct test.

Keywords: economic self-interest; immigration; attitudes (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F1 F22 J61 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 32 pages
Date: 2006-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-soc
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (12)

Published - published in: Economics Letters, 2008, 100 (2), 254-257

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Working Paper: Attitudes Towards Immigration: Does Economic Self-Interest Matter? (2006)
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