Main Article Content

Federico Guerrero
Department of Economics, University of Nevada, Reno, NV 89557
United States
Elliott Parker
Department of Economics, University of Nevada, Reno, NV 89557
United States
Vol. 11 No. 1 (2022), Articles, pages 7-30
DOI: https://doi.org/10.17979/ejge.2022.11.1.8601
Submitted: Jul 8, 2021 Accepted: Apr 26, 2022 Published: Jun 28, 2022
How to Cite

Abstract

This study considers the impact of immigration and ethnic diversity on government spending in 31 OECD countries over 25 years and compares the marginal effects for expenditures and revenues to approximate the fiscal burden. Results suggest that ethnic fractionalization, not immigration itself, has a negative impact on spending in the OECD. On the whole, immigrants tend to contribute more in taxes than they cause in expenditures, at least relative to the averages for the population as a whole, but this effect is reversed for immigrants from poorer countries.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Article Details

References

Ajilore, O. (2006). Econometric issues in education finance. Review of Regional Studies, 36(2):192–204.

Alesina, A. & Ferrara, E. L. (2005). Ethnic diversity and economic performance. Journal of Economic Literature, 43(3):762–800. https://doi.org/10.1257/002205105774431243

Alesina, A., Devleeschauwer, A., Easterly, W., Kurlat, S., & Wacziarg, R. (2003). Fractionalization. Journal of Economic Growth, 8(2):155–194. https://doi.org/10.3386/w9411

Alesina, A., Glaeser, E., & Sacerdote, B. (2001). Why doesn’t the US have a European-style welfare system? NBER Working Paper 8524, National Bureau of Economic Research. https://doi.org/10.3386/w8524

Alvarado, J. & Creedy, J. (1998). Population Ageing, Migration and Social Expenditure. Edward Elgar Publishing.

Arellano, M., & Bond, S. (1991). Some tests of specification for panel data: Monte Carlo evidence and an application to employment equations. The Review of Economic Studies, 58(2), 277-297. https://doi.org/10.2307/2297968

Auerbach, A. J. & Oreopoulos, P. (1999). Analyzing the fiscal impact of US immigration. American Economic Review, 89(2):176–180. https://doi.org/10.1257/aer.89.2.176

Card, D., Dustmann, C., & Preston, I. (2009). Immigration, wages, and compositional amenities. NBER Working Paper 15521, National Bureau of Economic Research. https://doi.org/10.3386/w15521

Coen-Pirani, D. (2011). Immigration and spending on public education: California, 1970–2000. Journal of Public Economics, 95 (11-12):1386–1396. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpubeco.2011.05.006

Cutler, D. M., Elmendorf, D. W., & Zeckhauser, R. J. (1993). Demographic characteristics and the public bundle. NBER Working Paper 4283, National Bureau of Economic Research. https://doi.org/10.3386/w4283

Davide, D. (2008). Low-skilled immigration and education policy with endogenous fertility. Discussion Paper 2008022, Universite Catholique de Louvain, Departement des Sciences Economiques.

Dempster, H., Leach, A., & Hargrave, K. (2020). Public attitudes towards immigration and immigrants: What people think, why, and how to influence them. ODI Working Paper 588, Overseas Development Institute.

Docquier, F., Ozden, C., & Peri, G. (2013). The labour market effects of immigration and emigration in OECD countries. Economic Journal, 124 (579):1106–1145. https://doi.org/10.1111/ecoj.12077

Drazanova, L. (2019). Historical index of ethnic fractionalization dataset. https://doi.org 10.7910/DVN/4JQRCL

Dustmann, C. & Frattini, T. (2014). The fiscal effects of immigration to the UK. The Economic Journal, 124 (580): F593–F643. https://doi.org/10.1111/ecoj.12181

Dustmann, C., Frattini, T., & Halls, C. (2010). Assessing the fiscal costs and benefits of A8 migration to the UK. Fiscal Studies, 31(1):1–41. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-5890.2010.00106.x

Easterly, W. & Levine, R. (1997). Africa’s growth tragedy: policies and ethnic divisions. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 112(4):1203–1250. https://doi.org/10.1162/

Edwards, R. & Ortega, F. (2017). The economic contribution of unauthorized workers: An industry analysis. Regional Science and Urban Economics, 67:119–134. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.regsciurbeco.2017.09.004

Figlio, D. N. & Fletcher, D. (2012). Suburbanization, demographic change and the consequences for school finance. Journal of Public Economics, 96(11-12):1144–1153. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpubeco.2011.07.007

Hansen, M. F., Schultz-Nielsen, M. L., & Tranæs, T. (2017). The fiscal impact of immigration to welfare states of the Scandinavian type. Journal of Population Economics, 30(3):925–952. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00148-017-0636-1

Hanson, G. H. (2005). Why Does Immigration Divide America? Peterson Institute.

Highfill, J. & O’Brien, K. (2015). The effect of ethnic diversity on municipal spending. Atlantic Economic Journal, 43(3):305–318. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11293-015-9469-z

Hopkins, D. (2009). The diversity discount: when increasing ethnic and racial diversity prevents tax increases. The Journal of Politics, 71(1):160–177. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0022381608090105

Huber, P. J. (1967). The behavior of maximum likelihood estimates under nonstandard conditions. In Proceedings of the Fifth Berkeley Symposium on Mathematical Statistics and Probability: Weather Modification; University of California Press: Berkeley, CA, USA (vol 1, p. 221-23).

Jaime-Castillo, A. M., Marqués-Perales, I., & Álvarez-Gálvez, J. (2016). The impact of social expenditure on attitudes towards immigration in Europe. Social Indicators Research, 126(3):1089–1108. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-015-0939-0

Jofre-Monseny, J., Sorribas-Navarro, P., & Vázquez-Grenno, J. (2016). Immigration and local spending in social services: evidence from a massive immigration wave. International Tax and Public Finance, 23:1004–1029. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10797-016-9399-y

Lee, R. & Miller, T. (2000). Immigration, social security, and broader fiscal impacts. American Economic Review, 90(2):350–354. https://doi.org/10.1257/aer.90.2.350

Lee, S., Lee, D., & Borcherding, T. (2016). Ethnic diversity and public goods provision: Evidence from U.S. municipalities and school districts. Urban Affairs Review, 52(5):685–713. https://doi.org/10.1177/1078087415587055

Mavisakalyan, A. (2011). Immigration, public education spending, and private schooling. Southern Economic Journal, 78(2):397–423. https://doi.org/10.4284/0038-4038-78.2.397

Mayr, K. (2005). The fiscal impact of immigrants in Austria–a generational accounting analysis. Empirica, 32(2):181–216. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10663-005-1758-3

Mohanty, S. A., Woolhandler, S., Himmelstein, D. U., Pati, S., Carrasquillo, O., & Bor, D. H. (2005). Health care expenditures of immigrants in the United States: a nationally representative analysis. American Journal of Public Health, 95 (8):1431–38. https://doi.org/10.2105/ajph.2004.044602

National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (2017). The Economic and Fiscal Consequences of Immigration. The National Academies Press, Washington, DC. https://doi.org/10.1111/padr.12048

Noy, S. & Voorend, K. (2016). Social rights and migrant realities: Migration policy reform and migrants’ access to health care in Costa Rica, Argentina, and Chile. International Migration and Integration, 17:605– 629. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12134-015-0416-2

Orrenius, P. (2017). New findings on the fiscal impact of immigration in the United States. Working Paper 1704, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, Research Department. https://doi.org/10.24149/wp1704

Ortega, F. & Peri, G. (2009). The causes and effects of international migrations: Evidence from OECD countries 1980-2005. NBER Working Paper 14833, National Bureau of Economic Research. https://doi.org/10.3386/w14833

Parker, E. (2020). Migration patterns in Eastern Europe and the world: A gravity approach. South East European Journal of Economics and Business, 15(1):66–79. https://doi.org/10.2478/jeb-2020-0006

Poterba, J. (1997). Demographic structure and the political economy of public education. Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 16(1):48–66. https://doi.org/10.1002/(sici)1520-6688(199724)16:1<48::aid-pam3>3.0.co;2-i

Rasmussen, L. (1997). International migration and health in the European Union. In Ugalde, A. & Cardenas, G., editors, Health and Social Services among International Labor Migrants, volume Ch. 1, pages 1–8. University of Texas Press, Austin, TX. https://doi.org/10.2307/2547335

Rugh, J. & Trounstine, J. (2011). The provision of local public goods in diverse communities: analyzing municipal bond elections. The Journal of Politics, 73 (4:1038–1050. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0022381611000776

Schaeffer, M. (2013). Ethnic diversity, public goods provision and social cohesion: lessons from an inconclusive literature. Discussion Paper SP VI 2013-103, Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung (WZB).

Smith, J. & Edmonston, B. (1997). The New Americans: Economic, Demographic, and Fiscal Effects of Immigration. National Academy Press, Washington, D.C.

Stichnoth, H. & van der Straeten, K. (2013). Ethnic diversity, public spending, and individual support for the welfare state: A review of the empirical literature. Journal of Economic Surveys, 27(2):364–389. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6419.2011.00711.x

Sunding, D. & Zwane, A. (2004). Local public goods and ethnic diversity: Evidence from the Immigration Reform and Control Act. Working paper, University of California at Berkeley, Department of Agriculture and Resource Economics.

Tanaka, R., Farre, L., and Ortega, F. (2018). Immigration, assimilation, and the future of public education. European Journal of Political Economy, 52:141–165. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejpoleco.2017.06.001

Tiebout, C. M. (1956). A pure theory of local expenditures. Journal of Political Economy, 64(5):416–424. https://doi.org/10.1086/257839

Trounstine, J. (2013). One for you, two for me: support for public goods investment in diverse communities. Working paper, University of California at Merced.

United Nations (1991). Provisional central product classification. Statistical Paper Series M 77, United Nations Publishing Division.

United Nations (2019). International migration. https://www.un.org/en/development/

desa/population/migration/data/.

United Nations University (2021). Government revenue dataset. https://www.wider.unu.edu/

project/governmentrevenue-dataset. https://doi.org/10.35188/unu-wider/grd-2021

Wagner, A. (1890). Finanzwissenchaft. Leipzig: C.F. Winter. World Bank (2021). World Databank: World Development Indicators. https://databank.worldbank.org.

White, H. (1980). A heteroskedasticity-consistent covariance matrix estimator and a direct test for heteroskedasticity. Econometrica, 48(4): 817-838. https://doi.org/10.2307/1912934