%0 Report
        %A Hessami, Zohal
%A Schirner, Sebastian
        %T Immigration Shocks and Shifting Social Group Boundaries
        %D 2024
        %8 2024 Oct
        %I Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
        %C Bonn
        %7 IZA Discussion Paper
        %N 17343
        %U https://www.iza.org/index.php/publications/dp17343
        %X We study whether the arrival of a new immigrant wave changes natives' acceptance of former immigrants and their descendants. We exploit the 2015 European refugee crisis and the context of German open-list local council elections where voting for immigrant-origin candidates represents a consequential revealed preference. We combine hand-collected candidate-level election data with administrative asylum seeker data. Continuous difference-in-differences estimations (based on municipal %∆ in asylum seekers) reveal that immigrant-origin candidates receive more votes the more asylum seekers arrived locally. This shift in social group boundaries is driven by candidates with a Southern/Eastern European origin being culturally similar to Germans.

        %K immigration
%K immigrant-origin candidates
%K local elections
%K social acceptance
%K cultural similarity