Working Paper: CEPR ID: DP2730
Authors: Per Anders Edin; Peter Fredriksson; Olof Slund
Abstract: Many developed countries, e.g. the UK, Germany, and Sweden, use or have used settlement policies to direct the inflow of new immigrants away from immigrant dense metropolitan areas. We evaluate a reform of Swedish immigration policy that featured dispersion of refugee immigrants across the country, but also a change in the approach to labour market integration. We focus exclusively on how immigrants fared because of the policy. The results indicate that immigrants experienced fairly substantial long-run losses because of the policy. We also find that only a smaller share of this effect was associated with the dispersion of immigrants across regions. The larger share of the impact appears to stem from a common component that affected immigrants regardless of where they were located. Our somewhat speculative reading of this result is that it can be traced to a shift in emphasis of integration policy from a policy focusing on labour market assimilation to one of income support.
Keywords: immigration; labour market outcomes; settlement policies
JEL Codes: J15; J18; R23
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| shift in integration policy (O24) | negative outcomes (I12) |
| Swedish settlement policy (J68) | long-run earnings loss (J17) |
| Swedish settlement policy (J68) | rate of idleness (J63) |
| Swedish settlement policy (J68) | likelihood of receiving welfare (I38) |
| dispersion across regions (R12) | long-run earnings loss (J17) |
| common component of policy effects (D78) | long-run earnings loss (J17) |