The Fiscal Politics of Immigration: Evidence from Survey Experiments in Japan

• In Event: Experiments in Political Economy

Abstract

Who dislikes immigrants, and why? Recent studies have pointed to concerns over the fiscal impact of immigration, specifically fiscal crowding, to be a strong determinant of anti-immigrant sentiment in developed democracies. But there exists a debate over which natives exhibit greater fear of fiscal crowding: the rich or the poor. Dustmann and Preston (2007) find that highly skilled workers are likely to be more concerned than low-skilled workers since they will need to bear most of the costs of fiscal crowding. Others, including Mewes and Mau (2013) and Van der Waal et al. (2010), find that the poor exhibit greater “welfare chauvinism” than the rich, while Gerber et al. (2017) report no statistically significant difference in concern for tax burdens or reduced benefits between highly skilled and less skilled respondents. This paper draws on both original vignette experiments and conjoint experiments conducted in Japan to find those who are more dependent on the state, specifically not only the poor but also the elderly, to be particularly worried that immigrants will place a strain on the country's welfare system. The “fiscal crowding'' concern appears to dominate other reasons such as cultural reasons to fear or welcome newcomers. Based on our findings, we discuss its implications and suggest that fiscal concern could also become more pronounced in countries with growing populations of aging citizens.

Authors

• Rieko Kage, University of Tokyo

• Frances McCall Rosenbluth, Yale University

• Seiki Tanaka, University of Leeds