Spillover effects of stricter immigration policies

Cristina Bratu, Matz Dahlberg, Mattias Engdahl and Till Nikolka

Journal of Public Economics, 2020, vol. 190, issue C

Abstract: We provide evidence for the existence of spillover effects of national immigration policies by estimating the effect of stricter family reunification rules in Denmark on migration behavior. We reach three main conclusions. Using Danish register data, we first show that stricter rules for reunification led to a clear and significant increase in emigration of Danish citizens with immigrant background. Most of the emigrants left Denmark for Sweden, a neighboring country in which reunification was possible. Next, using Swedish register data, we find that affected individuals emigrating to Sweden actually came for family formation purposes. Finally, we demonstrate that not all individuals that came to Sweden to reunite with a partner stayed in the country; of those leaving, return migration to Denmark was most common. Our results indicate that potential spillover effects from national migration policies should be taken into account when forming migration policy.

Keywords: Spillover effects of public policies; Migration policy; Family reunification; International migration (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F22 J12 J15 K37 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0047272720301031
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
Working Paper: Spillover Effects of Stricter Immigration Policies (2018)
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:eee:pubeco:v:190:y:2020:i:c:s0047272720301031

DOI: 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2020.104239

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Public Economics is currently edited by R. Boadway and J. Poterba

More articles in Journal of Public Economics from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().