Immigrant rights expansion and local integration: Evidence from Italy

We study how expanding immigrants’ rights affects their political and social integration by exploiting Romania’s accession to the EU in 2007, which granted municipal voting and residency rights to Romanian immigrants in Italy. Using an event-study analysis at the municipality level, we find three key results. First, enfranchisement increased Romanians’ turnout and the likelihood of electing Romanian-born councilors in municipal elections, particularly in competitive races. An instrumented difference-in-differences strategy shows that this effect is driven by the enfranchisement of preexisting immigrants, not by new arrivals. Second, the rate of consent to organ donation among Romanian immigrants increased after 2007, indicating that the expansion of rights extends beyond political representation to prosocial behavior. However, we also find that the presence of immigrants still increases the probability of right-leaning party victories and municipal spending on public security, while reducing spending on social programs. This suggests that native backlash to immigrant presence outweighs the political influence of newly enfranchised immigrant communities in shaping local electoral outcomes.