Abstract
Do electoral incentives affect immigration policies? Exploiting the Italian system for refugees’ reception and data from Italian municipalities, we show that proximity to elections reduces the probability that a municipality applies to host a refugee center by 26%, despite the economic benefits arising from these centers. Low electoral competition and high shares of extreme-right voters drive the effect. Our results are rationalized by a theoretical model and can explain the unequal distribution of refugees across and within countries.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | lbad002 |
| Pages (from-to) | 901-920 |
| Number of pages | 20 |
| Journal | Journal of Economic Geography |
| Volume | 23 |
| Issue number | 4 |
| Early online date | 20 Feb 2023 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 1 Jul 2023 |
Keywords
- Migration
- Reception of refugees
- Electoral incentives
- Fiscal grants
Access to Document
- Gamalerio_2023_JEG_Electoralincentives_CC
Copyright © The Author (2023). Published by Oxford University Press. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.