The Political Impact of Immigration: Evidence from the United States

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Mayda, Anna Maria; Peri, Giovanni; Steingress, Walter
• 署名单位: Georgetown University; University of California System; University of California Davis
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC JOURNAL-APPLIED ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1945-7782
• DOI: 10.1257/app.20190081
• 发表日期: 2022
• 页码: 358-389
• 关键词: individual attitudes; LABOR; COMPETITION

摘要

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.