Replication Data for: Populism: Magnet or Deterrent?

Firms in the U.S. rely on highly skilled immigrants, particularly in the science and engineering sectors. Yet the recent politics of immigration marks a substantial change to U.S. immigration policy. We implement a conjoint experiment that isolates the causal effect of nativist, anti-immigrant, pronouncements on where skilled potential- migrants choose to immigrate to. While these policies have a significantly negative effect on the destination choices of Chilean and U.K. student subjects, they have little effect on the choices of Indian and Chinese student subjects. These results are confirmed through an unobtrusive test of subjects’ general immigration destination preferences. Moreover, there is some evidence that the negative effect of these nativist policies are particularly salient for those who self-identify with the Left.

美国企业高度依赖高技能移民，尤其是在科学与工程领域。然而近期的移民政治动向已对美国移民政策造成实质性变革。本研究开展联合实验，以分离本土主义反移民言论对潜在高技能移民选择移民目的地的因果效应。尽管此类政策对智利与英国学生受试者的移民目的地选择产生显著负向影响，但对印度与中国学生受试者的选择几乎无作用。通过对受试者通用移民目的地偏好的隐蔽测试，上述结论得到了验证。此外，有证据表明，此类本土主义政策的负向效应在自我认同为左翼的受试者中尤为突出。