TY  - RPRT
        AU  - Slotwinski, Michaela
AU  - Stutzer, Alois
        TI  - The Deterrent Effect of Voting Against Minarets: Identity Utility and Foreigners' Location Choice
        PY  - 2015/Nov/
        PB  - Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
        CY  - Bonn
        T2  - IZA Discussion Paper
        IS  - 9497
        UR  - https://www.iza.org/index.php/publications/dp9497
        AB  - 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.
        KW  - attitudes
KW  - foreigners
KW  - identity utility
KW  - location choice
KW  - RDD
        ER  -