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The Effect of Far Right Parties on the Location Choice of Immigrants: Evidence from Lega Nord Mayors

Author

Listed:
  • Emanuele Bracco
  • Maria De Paola
  • Colin Peter Green
  • Vincenzo Scoppa

Abstract

Immigration has increasingly taken centre-stage in the political landscape. Part of this has been rise in far-right, anti-immigration parties in a range of countries. Existing evidence suggests that the presence of immigrants has a substantial effect on the political views of the electorate, generating an advantage to these parties with anti-immigration or nationalist platforms. This paper explores a closely related issue but overlooked issue: how immigrant behavior is influenced by these parties. We focus on immigrant location decisions in Northern Italy which has seen the rise of the anti-immigration party Lega Nord. We construct a dataset of mayoral elections in Italy for the years 2002-2014, and calculate the effect of electing a mayor belonging to, or supported by Lega Nord. To identify this relationship we focus on mayors who have been elected with narrow margins of victory in a Regression Discontinuity framework. The election of Lega Nord mayor discourages immigrants from moving into the municipality.

Suggested Citation

  • Emanuele Bracco & Maria De Paola & Colin Peter Green & Vincenzo Scoppa, 2017. "The Effect of Far Right Parties on the Location Choice of Immigrants: Evidence from Lega Nord Mayors," Working Papers 156985061, Lancaster University Management School, Economics Department.
    • Handle: RePEc:lan:wpaper:156985061
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Immigration; Geographical Mobility; Voting Behavior; Political economy; Regression Discontinuity Design;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J15 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Minorities, Races, Indigenous Peoples, and Immigrants; Non-labor Discrimination
    • J61 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Geographic Labor Mobility; Immigrant Workers
    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior

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