(Mis)Information, Immigration and Redistribution

The base of the Statue of Liberty, which happens to be a gift from a European country to the United States, reads, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” The ideas embodied in this phrase have been increasingly debated in recent years, not just in the United States, but in Europe as well. More recently, polls suggest that immigration was the number one issue for U.S. voters in the 2018 midterm election.

In a recent paper, Alberto Alesina, Armando Miano and Stefanie Stantcheva of Harvard University analyzed the misconceptions of different population groups about the characteristics and numbers of immigrants arriving in their countries. They also estimated the effect on people’s views of redistributive policies when different information about immigrants is communicated. Given the role immigration currently plays on the political stage, its effect on economic policy is key.

The authors’ sample consisted of 22,506 respondents from Germany, France, Italy, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States. For the experiment, subjects received one of three randomly assigned information treatments regarding immigration. Individuals receiving the first treatment were shown the actual share of immigrants living in their country and how it compared to other developed nations. For the United States, they included information about illegal immigration. The second treatment informed survey participants about the regions of the world immigrants came from. The third showed a day in the life of a hard-working immigrant, based on real cases.

The data from the study present a marked difference between the actual share of immigrants in a country and citizens’ perceptions. With the exception of Sweden, the average citizen who participated in the survey assumed the immigration rate in his or her country was at least double the actual rate. Also, in no group, including political affiliation and education level, was the average rate of misperception lower than 15 percent. Regarding the origins of immigrants, all countries thought that they were disproportionately coming from North Africa, sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East. Except France, all nations represented in the sample overestimated the proportion of Muslim immigrants. The largest misperception in this area was in the United States, where respondents believed that Muslims made up 23 percent of immigrants, despite only accounting for 10 percent. Additionally, participants in all countries except Sweden thought immigrants were poorer than they actually were, and unemployment rates among immigrants were consistently overestimated. Respondents in all countries except Italy underestimated immigrants’ education levels.

These numbers indicate that the “wisdom of crowds” effect does not hold when it comes to immigration. DellaVigna and Pope (2016) and Alesina et al (2018) study this effect of the public’s perception of socioeconomic variables—the “wisdom of crowds” idea predicts that misconceptions are often reported at the individual level, but, on average, they dissipate. With immigration, however, the overwhelming majority overstate the share of immigrants in the population and understate the skills they have.

Regarding the different information treatments, the authors found that citizens who are prompted with information about immigration are prone to be averse to redistributive policies. On the other hand, when people are shown that at least some immigrants are hardworking, they support redistribution more, given that they consider immigrants to be less of a burden on the welfare system. According to Alesina, Miano and Stantcheva, the current U.S. administration’s charged rhetoric could have an impact on voter preferences toward redistribution policies.

This study suggests that political parties with anti-redistribution agendas will not stop the circulation of misinformation regarding immigration anytime soon. Moving forward, fact-checking enterprises and the academic community have an increased role to play in enriching the public debate, particularly regarding the amount and appeal of factual information in circulation. Focusing on the distribution of factual information is a crucial step we must take in order to improve the quality of public discourse and slowly bridge the political divide.

Article source: Alesina, Alberto, Armando Miano, and Stefanie Stantcheva, “Immigration and Redistribution,” National Bureau of Economic Research, Working Paper No. 24733 (2018).

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