Immigrant Franchise and Immigration Policy: Evidence from the Progressive Era

Costanza Biavaschi and Giovanni Facchini

No 13195, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: What is the role played by immigrant groups in shaping migration policy in the destination country? We address this question exploiting cross-state variation in U.S. citizens' access to the franchise, due to the presence of residency requirements. First we document that naturalized immigrants were more geographically mobile than natives. Second, congressmen representing districts with large numbers of naturalized U.S. citizens were more likely to support an open migration policy, but this effect is reversed once we account for residency requirements. Our results indicate that electoral accountability of U.S. congressmen to naturalized immigrants was a key factor in explaining this outcome.

Keywords: immigration policy; political economy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F22 J61 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 65 pages
Date: 2020-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-int and nep-mig
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

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Working Paper: Immigrant franchise and immigration policy: Evidence from the Progressive Era (2020)
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