Who is Against Immigration? A Cross-Country Investigation of Individual Attitudes Toward Immigrants

Abstract

This paper empirically analyzes both economic and non-economic determinants of attitudestoward immigrants, within and across countries. The two individual-level survey data setsused, covering a wide range of developed and developing countries, make it possible to testfor interactive effects between individual characteristics and country-level attributes. Thepaper identifies and investigates a strong empirical regularity concerning the relationshipbetween individual skill and attitudes toward immigrants. I find that individuals with higherlevels of skill are more likely to be pro-immigration in high per capita GDP countries and lesslikely in low per capita GDP countries. Additional results, based on a smaller sample ofcountries, suggest a labor-market explanation for this cross-country pattern. The variationacross countries in the correlation between skill and preferences appears to be related todifferences in the skill composition of natives relative to immigrants across destinationeconomies. This finding is consistent with the predictions of the Heckscher-Ohlin model, inthe absence of factor-price-insensitivity, and of the factor-proportions-analysis model. Finally,non-economic variables also appear to be correlated with immigration attitudes but they donot seem to alter significantly the results on the economic explanations.

Keywords: international migration, political economy, immigration preferences, trade preferences

JEL Classification: F22, F1, J61