Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Gamalerio, Matteo
• Luca, Mario
• Romarri, Alessio
• Viskanic, Max

Titel

Refugee reception, extreme-right voting, and compositional amenities: Evidence from Italian municipalities

Ist Teil von

• Regional science and urban economics, 2023-05, Vol.100, p.103892, Article 103892

Ort / Verlag

Elsevier B.V

Erscheinungsjahr

2023

Quelle

Alma/SFX Local Collection

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• We use data from Italy to study the political and social impact of a refugee reception policy (SPRAR) directly managed by local governments, whose features recall the conditions of the contact theory (Allport, 1954). Instrumental variables estimates indicate that municipalities that opened a refugee center between the 2013 and 2018 national elections experienced a change in the vote shares of extreme-right parties that is approximately 7 percentage points lower compared to municipalities that did not open a refugee center. We document that the positive impact of SPRARs on “compositional amenities” (i.e., local schools) and population growth allows explaining the negative impact on anti-immigrant prejudice. Finally, we provide evidence of spillovers in prejudice reduction in neighboring municipalities without a SPRAR. •We analyze the impact of a refugee policy managed by local governments.•Refugee centers managed by municipal governments reduce far-right parties votes.•We find positive effects on “compositional amenities” and population growth.•We provide evidence of spillovers in neighboring municipalities without centers.