Local Immigration and Support for Anti-Immigration Parties: A Meta-Analysis

Does the share of immigrants in a community influence whether people vote for anti-immigration parties? We conduct a systematic review of the causal inference literature studying this question. We collect estimates from 20 studies and develop a new Bayesian meta-analysis framework to account for both between-study heterogeneity in effect sizes and the possibility of reporting bias. Although meta-analysis methods that do not adjust for reporting bias suggest a moderate effect of local immigration, our Bayesian model finds that the effect of local immigration on far-right voting is on average negligible once we account for reporting bias. However, the analysis also reveals a large heterogeneity in effects across contexts, suggesting that local immigration may be important for anti-immigration vote shares in certain settings.