Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/125001 
Year of Publication: 
2015
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 9497
Publisher: 
Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
This paper uses the vote on the Swiss minaret initiative as a natural experiment to identify the causal effect of negative attitudes towards immigrants on foreigners' location choices and thus indirectly on their utility. Based on a regression discontinuity design with unknown discontinuity points and administrative data on the population of foreigners, we find that the probability of their moving to a municipality that unexpectedly expressed strong reservations decreases initially by about 60 percent. The effect levels off over a period of about 5 months. Consistent with a reduction in the identity utility for immigrants in general, the reaction is not confined to Muslims, whereby high-skilled foreigners seem to be most sensitive to the newly revealed reservations.
Subjects: 
attitudes
foreigners
identity utility
location choice
RDD
JEL: 
D83
J61
R23
Z13
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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