Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/216900 
Authors: 
Year of Publication: 
2020
Series/Report no.: 
GLO Discussion Paper No. 540
Publisher: 
Global Labor Organization (GLO), Essen
Abstract: 
Across Europe, far-right parties have made significant electoral gains in recent years. Their anti-immigration stance is considered one of the main factors behind their success. Using data from Finland, this paper studies the effect of immigration on voting for the far-right Finns Party on a local level. Exploiting a convenient setup for a shift-share instrument, I find that one percentage point increase in the share of foreign citizens in municipality decreases Finns Party's vote share by 3.4 percentage points. Placebo tests using pre-period data confirm this effect is not driven by persistent trends at the municipality level. The far-right votes lost to immigration are captured by the two pro-immigration parties. Turning to potential mechanisms, immigration is found to increase voter turnout, potentially activating local pro-immigration voters. Moreover, the negative effect is only present in municipalities with high initial exposure to immigrants, consistent with the intergroup contact theory. Finally, I also provide some evidence for welfarestate channel as a plausible mechanism behind the main result.
Subjects: 
Immigration
far-right
political economy
voting
JEL: 
H71
J15
J61
P16
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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