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Migration and the Welfare State: The Economic Power of the Non-Voter?

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Author Info
Kira Boerner ()
Silke Uebelmesser ()

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Abstract

This paper investigates the impact of emigration on the political choice regarding the size of the welfare state. Mobility has two countervailing effects: the political participation effect and the tax base effect. With emigration, the composition of the constituency changes. This increases the political influence of the less mobile part of the population. The new political majority has to take into account that emigration reduces tax revenues and thereby affects the feasible set of redistribution policies. The interaction of the two effects has so far not been analyzed in isolation. We find that the direction of the total effect of migration depends on the initial income distribution in the economy. Our results also contribute to the empirical debate on the validity of the median-voter approach for explaining the relation between income inequality and redistribution levels.

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Paper provided by CESifo GmbH in its series CESifo Working Paper Series with number CESifo Working Paper No. 1517.

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Date of creation: 2005
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Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_1517

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Keywords: migration redistribution voting

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
D31 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Personal Income and Wealth Distribution
D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Models of Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
F22 - International Economics - - International Factor Movements and International Business - - - International Migration
H50 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - General

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References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
  1. Nico A. Hansen & Anke S. Kessler, 2001. "The Political Geography of Tax H(e)avens and Tax Hells," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(4), pages 1103-1115, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  2. Bolton, Patrick & Roland, Gerard, 1997. "The Breakup of Nations: A Political Economy Analysis," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 112(4), pages 1057-90, November.
    Other versions:
  3. Charles M. Tiebout, 1956. "A Pure Theory of Local Expenditures," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 64, pages 416. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  4. Epple, Dennis & Filimon, Radu & Romer, Thomas, 1984. "Equilibrium among local jurisdictions: toward an integrated treatment of voting and residential choice," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(3), pages 281-308, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  5. Thomas. J. Nechyba, 1997. "Existence of equilibrium and stratification in local and hierarchical Tiebout economies with property taxes and voting," Economic Theory, Springer, vol. 10(2), pages 277-304. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  6. Glomm, Gerhard & Lagunoff, Roger, 1998. "A Tiebout theory of public vs private provision of collective goods," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(1), pages 91-112, April. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  7. Hansen, Nico A. & Kessler, Anke S., 2001. "(Non-)Existence of Equilibria in Multicommunity Models," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(3), pages 418-435, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  8. Hansen, Nico & Kessler, Anke, 2004. "Interregional Redistribution and Mobility in Federations: A Positive Approach," CEPR Discussion Papers 4576, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  11. Alexander Haupt & Wolfgang Peters, 2003. "Voting on public pensions with hands and feet," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 4(1), pages 57-80, 04. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  12. Meltzer, Allan H & Richard, Scott F, 1981. "A Rational Theory of the Size of Government," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 89(5), pages 914-27, October. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  13. Eckhard Janeba & Horst Raff, 1997. "Should the Power to Redistribute Income be (De-)Centralized? An Example," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer, vol. 4(4), pages 453-461, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  14. Harms, Philipp & Zink, Stefan, 2003. "Limits to redistribution in a democracy: a survey," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 19(4), pages 651-668, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  15. Epple, Dennis & Romer, Thomas, 1991. "Mobility and Redistribution," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 99(4), pages 828-58, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  16. Mansoorian, Arman & Myers, Gordon M., 1993. "Attachment to home and efficient purchases of population in a fiscal externality economy," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(1), pages 117-132, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  17. Wilson, John D., 1982. "Optimal linear income taxation in the presence of emigration," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(3), pages 363-379, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Victoria Chorny, & Rob Euwals & Kees Folmer, 2007. "Immigration Policy and Welfare State Design," CPB Documents 153, CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis. [Downloadable!]
  2. Kathleen M. Day & Stanley L. Winer, 2005. "Policy-induced Internal Migration: An Empirical Investigation of the Canadian Case," CESifo Working Paper Series CESifo Working Paper No. , CESifo GmbH. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
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