%0 Report
        %A Slotwinski, Michaela
%A Stutzer, Alois
        %T The Deterrent Effect of Voting Against Minarets: Identity Utility and Foreigners' Location Choice
        %D 2015
        %8 2015 Nov
        %I Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
        %C Bonn
        %7 IZA Discussion Paper
        %N 9497
        %U https://www.iza.org/index.php/publications/dp9497
        %X This paper uses the vote on the Swiss minaret initiative as a natural experiment to identify the causal effect of negative attitudes towards immigrants on foreigners' location choices and thus indirectly on their utility. Based on a regression discontinuity design with unknown discontinuity points and administrative data on the population of foreigners, we find that the probability of their moving to a municipality that unexpectedly expressed strong reservations decreases initially by about 60 percent. The effect levels off over a period of about 5 months. Consistent with a reduction in the identity utility for immigrants in general, the reaction is not confined to Muslims, whereby high-skilled foreigners seem to be most sensitive to the newly revealed reservations.
        %K attitudes
%K foreigners
%K identity utility
%K location choice
%K RDD