Does Growing up in Economic Hard Times Increase Compassion? The Case of Attitudes towards Immigration

Maria Cotofan, Robert Dur and Stephan Meier
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Maria Cotofan: Centre for Economic Performance, London School of Economics
Stephan Meier: Columbia Business School, CESifo, and IZA

No 22-047/I, Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers from Tinbergen Institute

Abstract: Recent evidence shows that people who grew up in economic hard times more strongly favor government redistribution and are more compassionate towards the poor. We investigate how inclusive this increase in compassion is by studying how macroeconomic conditions experienced during young adulthood affect immigration attitudes. Using US and global data, we show that experiencing bad macroeconomic circumstances strengthen anti-immigration attitudes for life. Moreover, we find that people become generally more outgroup hostile. Our results thus suggest that the underlying motive for more government redistribution is not a universal increase in compassion, but more self-interested and restricted to one’s ingroup.

Keywords: Immigration; Attitudes; Social preferences; Parochialism; Redistribution; Macroeconomic conditions; Impressionable years (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D9 E7 J1 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022-07-28
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dem, nep-ltv and nep-pol
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https://papers.tinbergen.nl/22047.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Does growing up in economic hard times increase compassion? The case of attitudes towards immigration (2024)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:tin:wpaper:20220047

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