Bitterness in life and attitudes towards immigration

Panu Poutvaara and Max Steinhardt ()

European Journal of Political Economy, 2018, vol. 55, issue C, 471-490

Abstract: Worries about immigration have played a major role in the rise of extremist parties across Europe, the Brexit referendum, and Trump's presidential campaign. We show that bitter people who feel they have not gotten what they deserve in life worry more about immigration. This relationship holds for respondents with different levels of skills, job security, concerns about crime, the general economic situation, or their own economic situation. Panel estimates document a strong link between bitterness and worries about immigration after controlling for time-constant individual heterogeneity. Finally, we find that bitterness is associated with support for the extreme right.

Keywords: Immigration; Bitterness; Native attitudes; Political extremism (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D72 F22 J61 P16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (31)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Bitterness in life and attitudes towards immigration (2018)
Working Paper: Bitterness in Life and Attitudes Towards Immigration (2015)
Working Paper: Bitterness in Life and Attitudes towards Immigration (2015)
Working Paper: Bitterness in life and attitudes towards immigration (2015)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:poleco:v:55:y:2018:i:c:p:471-490

DOI: 10.1016/j.ejpoleco.2018.04.007

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