The Political Impact of Immigration: Evidence from the United States

Anna Maria Mayda, Giovanni Peri and Walter Steingress

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 2022, vol. 14, issue 1, 358-89

Abstract: This paper studies the impact of immigration to the United States on the vote share for the Republican Party using county-level data from 1990 to 2016. Our main contribution is to show that an increase in high-skilled immigrants decreases the share of Republican votes, while an inflow of low-skilled immigrants increases it. These effects are mainly due to the indirect impact on existing citizens' votes, and this is independent of the origin country and race of immigrants. We find that the political effect of immigration is heterogeneous across counties and depends on their skill level, public spending, and noneconomic characteristics.

JEL-codes: D72 J15 J24 J61 R23 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (49)

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Related works:
Working Paper: The Political Impact of Immigration: Evidence from the United States (2018)
Working Paper: The Political Impact of Immigration: Evidence from the United States (2018)
Working Paper: The Political Impact of Immigration: Evidence from the United States (2018)
Working Paper: The Political Impact of Immigration: Evidence from the United States (2018)
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DOI: 10.1257/app.20190081

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