Citation

Discussion Paper Details

Please find the details for DP15587 in an easy to copy and paste format below:

Full Details   |   Bibliographic Reference

Full Details

Title: Immigration, Political Ideologies and the Polarization of American Politics

Author(s): Axel Dreher, Sarah Langlotz, Johannes Matzat, Anna Maria Mayda and Chris Parsons

Publication Date: December 2020

Keyword(s): migration, Polarization, Political Ideology, Refugees and United States

Programme Area(s): Labour Economics and Public Economics

Abstract: We study the extent to which migrant inflows to the United States affect the political polarization of campaign donors and the ideology of politicians campaigning for the House of Representatives in the 1992-2016 period. Implementing various polarization measures based on ideology data derived from 16 million campaign finance contributors, our results show that migrant inflows causally increase the polarization of both campaign donations and leading political candidates. Our estimates hold over the medium-run, although the effects decline over time. The effects of migration are stronger if counties host migrants from more distant cultures, or if incoming migrants are similarly educated. Our main results hold when we focus on refugees as opposed to all immigrants on aggregate.

For full details and related downloads, please visit: https://cepr.org/active/publications/discussion_papers/dp.php?dpno=15587

Bibliographic Reference

Dreher, A, Langlotz, S, Matzat, J, Mayda, A and Parsons, C. 2020. 'Immigration, Political Ideologies and the Polarization of American Politics'. London, Centre for Economic Policy Research. https://cepr.org/active/publications/discussion_papers/dp.php?dpno=15587