Using country-level panel data of codified immigration policies to estimate the effects of immigration policies on natives' attitudes towards immigrants

2020 Fiscal Year Research-status Report

• Project/Area Number: 20K01726
• Research Institution: Kobe University
• Principal Investigator: 高橋 アナマリア 神戸大学, 経済学研究科, 経済学研究科研究員 (00634635)
• Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha): 高橋 新吾 広島大学, 人間社会科学研究科(国), 准教授 (70445899)
• Project Period (FY): 2020-04-01 – 2024-03-31
• Keywords: Immigration / Economic self-interest

Outline of Annual Research Achievements

During this year, I focused on the literature review to understand the history of Japanese immigrants policy towards low skilled immigrants, and on the formulation of theoretical background of how natives’ attitudes might be shaped. My literature review of the immigration policies in Japan reveals that Japan has been a reluctant accepter of unskilled migrant workers despite the shortage of unskilled workers it experienced time to time. Japan's immigration law, the Immigration Control Act, was first enacted in 1951, but until the modification of this law in 2018, there was no work visa categories for unskilled workers. Unskilled migrant workers were accepted through a back-door channel called a trainee system.
As for the theoretical underpinning of the natives’ attitudes towards immigrants, there are two economic channels. First channel is through wage and employment effects of immigrants. The inflow of low skilled immigrants would negatively affect the wage and employment of low skilled natives, but it may have positive effects for high skilled natives since low skilled immigrants are likely to be their complements. Another economic channel is the natives’ fear that immigrants may strain the country’s welfare budget. Given that high income natives pay greater share of welfare budget due to the progressive income tax, high income natives might negatively perceive low skilled immigrants. Given these theoretical insights, I was able to formulate econometrics models that can test whether natives’ attitudes towards immigrants are shaped by economic self-interest.

Current Status of Research Progress

2: Research has progressed on the whole more than it was originally planned.

Reason

I completed the literature review, and formulated the theoretical underpinning of how natives’ attitudes towards immigrants might be shaped by economic self-interest.

Strategy for Future Research Activity

I will proceed with the estimation. I have derived the econometric models that can test the economic self-interest hypotheses. The wage and employment channel operates through natives' education. More specifically, native’s education should be positively correlated with pro-immigrant attitudes. The welfare hypothesis operates through natives’ income. More specifically, natives’ income will be negatively correlated with the pro-immigrant attitudes. Natives' education and income are likely to be endogenous since they are correlated with natives’ unobserved characteristics such as cultural openness and political conservatism. I will deal with the endogeneity by applying a model that is akin to the difference in difference estimation.

Causes of Carryover

Due to the corona pandemic, I was not able to have research meetings as planned, and international conferences were cancelled.