Preferences for Redistribution and International Migration

Ilpo Kauppinen and Panu Poutvaara

VfS Annual Conference 2020 (Virtual Conference): Gender Economics from Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association

Abstract: Are migrants self-selected and sorted according to their views about what constitutes a fair level of redistribution? A major challenge in answering this question is that fairness concerns and self-interest are intertwined. We present a theoretical framework that allows us to test whether migrants self-select and sort themselves according to fairness concerns, in addition to financial self-interest. Our empirical analysis uses our own survey data on Danish emigrants to various destinations, combined with full-population administrative data and survey data on Danes living in Denmark. To exclude the role of financial self-interest, we focus on emigrants' attitudes towards redistribution in Denmark where they no longer pay taxes or receive transfers. We find strong support for the hypothesis that migrants self-select and sort themselves according to their views about what constitutes a fair level of redistribution among men, but not among women: the majority of men who emigrate are more negative towards redistribution in Denmark than non-migrants, while the opposite pattern prevails among women. The stark gender difference remains when solely looking at those who emigrated for work reasons.

Keywords: Migration; Emigration; Welfare state; Redistribution; Political preferences (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F22 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-int
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https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/224599/1/vfs-2020-pid-40044.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Preferences for Redistribution and International Migration (2019)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:vfsc20:224599

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