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Published Paper

  This paper analyses immigrants' views on immigration, filling an important void in the immigration literature. In particular, it explores the role of statistical discrimination as a cause of possible opposition to immigration in absence of stringent immigration policies and large volumes of undocumented immigration. We test this hypothesis using US data from the 7th wave of the World Value Survey finding that successful immigrants in the US – i.e. those in the highest socio-economic group – have negative views about immigration, especially with respect to its contribution to unemployment, crime, and the risk of a terrorist attack. This effect does not arise in the case of host countries that apply stricter controls on immigration, like Australia, Canada, and New Zealand, or do not attract large volumes of undocumented immigrants. We interpret these results as evidence that undocumented or uncontrolled immigration negatively affects the standing of existing high socio-economic status immigrants by lowering it in the eyes of US natives, hence triggering an anti-immigration view as a response. [IZA Discussion Paper Version - here; CGO Working Paper Version: - here]

N.B.: We are indebted to the Center for Growth Opportunity at Utah State University for financial and research assistance support. A refereed version of this paper has been published as part of the CGO's immigration working paper series. 

Working Paper

          This study probes the labor market dynamics surrounding the inclusion of immigrants, focusing on the perspectives of the highest socioeconomic groups in the United States, a demographic previously identified as largely opposed to immigration. The prevailing sentiment among these groups has been attributed to apprehensions about crime, job security, and terrorism, potentially exacerbated by statistical discrimination—a hypothesis introduced by Tani and Kaeser (2022). Addressing this notion, our controlled laboratory experiment, executed at BRAC University in Bangladesh, evaluates whether the propensity to engage in statistical discrimination influences immigration attitudes as reported in the World Value Survey (WVS).


Presented at the 92nd Annual Meeting of Southern Economic Association, on November 19, 2022, at Fort Lauderdale, Florida


Work in Progress


Assessing the Impact of Economic Shocks on US Trade: A Machine Learning Approach to Causal Inference (Collaboration with Sherzod Akhundjanov, Supported by the USDA)