Latin American Brotherhood? Immigration and Preferences for Redistribution

The effect of immigration on preferences for redistribution has been recently studied in the context of developed countries receiving migrants from poorer countries with very different cultural backgrounds. In this paper we explore this issue in the context of migration across similar Latin American countries. To this aim, we exploit data at the provincial level from a large attitudinal survey (LAPOP) and match it to immigration data from different sources. We follow three approaches: first, we implement an instrumental variables approach in a cross-section of censuses; second we estimate fixed effects models with data from a large sample of harmonized national household surveys, and third we exploit the massive inflow of Venezuelan refugees into the border country of Colombia with an instrumental variables methodology. Our results suggest a significant, negative and non-monotonic relationship between the share of immigrants at the provincial level and the support for redistribution policies. This anti-redistribution effect is larger among those individuals with higher income.