Migration and the welfare state: The economic power of the non-voter? |
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Authors: | Kira Boerner Silke Uebelmesser |
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Institution: | (1) Department of Economics, University of Munich, Akademiestr. 1/III, 80799 Munich;(2) Center for Economic Studies, University of Munich, Schackstr. 4, 80539 Munich |
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Abstract: | This paper investigates the impact of emigration on the political choice of the size of the welfare state. Mobility has two
countervailing effects: the political participation effect and the tax base effect. With emigration, the composition of the
constituency changes. This increases the political influence of the less mobile part of the population. But the new political
majority then also has to take into account that emigration reduces tax revenues and thereby affects the feasible set of redistribution
policies. We find that the direction of the total effect of migration depends on the initial income distribution in the economy.
Our results also contribute to the empirical debate on the validity of the median-voter approach in cross-country studies
for explaining the relation between income inequality and redistribution levels.
JEL Classification F22 · H50 · D31 · D72 |
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Keywords: | Migration Redistribution Voting |
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