Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail: Did Immigration Cause Brexit?
Abstract
Can large immigration inflows impact electoral outcomes and specifically, what
impact did immigration have on the vote in favour of leaving the European Union
(Brexit) in the United Kingdom? In particular, I focus on how the increase in Polish
immigration, the major group of immigrants post 2004, affected votes in favour of
leaving the EU. I find a percentage point increase in Polish immigration to the UK
to have caused an increase in votes in favour of Brexit of about 2.72-3.12 percentage
points, depending on the specification. To obtain exogenous variation in Polish
immigration, I collect data from the archives that reveals the location of Polish
War Resettlement Camps after Word War II, which location is plausibly exogenous
to current political outcomes. Discussing potential mechanisms, I examine public
opinion data in the British Election Study 2015 and find evidence of adversity
towards immigration to be a root cause. Other considerations such as the National
Health Service (NHS), incumbency and the general trust in politicians as well as
the political institutions seem not to play a role.
Origin : Files produced by the author(s)