International migration and the welfare state revisited

Noel Gaston and Gulasekaran Rajaguru ()

European Journal of Political Economy, 2013, vol. 29, issue C, 90-101

Abstract: Immigration is a controversial topic in most developed economies. The presence of a redistributive welfare state in all major immigrant host countries creates a margin on which immigration affects native welfare. The primary focus of the paper is whether a large intake of immigrants reduces welfare state effort. It is usually argued that steady increases in immigration lead to public pressure for lower levels of publicly-funded social expenditures. In contrastz to the earlier empirical literature on this topic, we find little evidence in favour of this hypothesis. While immigration does have a relatively modest effect on the welfare state, if anything there is some support for the view that a greater influx of immigrants has lead policy-makers to increase welfare state spending.

Keywords: International immigration; Welfare state expenditures; Dynamic panel estimates (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F2 H53 J61 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (44)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:poleco:v:29:y:2013:i:c:p:90-101

DOI: 10.1016/j.ejpoleco.2012.08.004

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