Does Dual Citizenship Increase Naturalization Rates?

• In Event: Naturalization and Citizenship

Abstract

It is widely believed that the requirement to give up their home-country citizenship significantly decreases the chances that immigrants seek naturalization. In the last decades many countries have liberalized their laws and allow dual citizenship for all immigrants or at least immigrants from particular countries. This paper evaluates if these reforms have increased naturalization rates among immigrants in three major destination countries: The United States, Germany and Switzerland. We combine monthly survey and annual register data from the last 25 years to estimate the effect of 20 dual citizenship reforms in immigrants' origin and destination countries on naturalization rates. Our results suggest that dual citizenship reforms sometimes, but not always, result in a significant increase in naturalization rates. We offer an explanation that accounts for the heterogeneity in the effects of dual citizenship reforms.

Authors

• Moritz Marbach, ETH Zürich

• Jens Hainmueller, Stanford University

• Dominik Hangartner, London School of Economics