Xenophobic Violence and Foreigner Integration. Individual-level evidence from 19th-century France

Anytime, anywhere, foreigners face hostility from the natives and politicians. An important scholarly debate regards the effect of exposure to violence on foreigners' integration efforts in their host society. Using a potential outcome framework, we highlight the risk of post-treatment bias in studies employing cross sectional data, as most existing works do, and the importance of tracking immigrants over time. Using individual-level data from 19th century France, we make three empirical contributions. We first document that exposure to xenophobic violence pushes foreigners to leave their host community. We look at the heterogeneous responses of foreigners to violence. Immigrants who are more invested economically and emotionally in their host society are less likely to exit and more likely to integrate. Wealthy individuals, in contrast, exhibit a higher propensity to leave. Finally, we provide evidence that (in our context at least) cross-sectional analyses are likely to yield upwardly biased estimates.