2016
The Effects of Immigrant’s Voting Rights:
Evidence from a ‘Natural Experiment’
Simona Fiore
The effects of immigrant’s voting rights:
evidence from a ‘natural experiment’
Simona Fiore ∗
Preliminary Draft
June 20, 2016
Abstract
This paper studies the political effect of immigration in the receiving country, by focusing on how political and economic outcomes change as a consequence of an increase in
political power of ethnic minorities, given by the extension of voting rights to non citizens of non EU origin. A reform introduced in Belgium in 2004 is exploited as exogenous variation in the share of immigrant potential voters. In the spirit of a differencesin-differences strategy, election results of municipalities with more immigrants entitled
to vote are compared with municipalities with a smaller share of immigrant voters (intensity of the treatment), before and after the reform. Significant effects on elections’
results are found in the region of Flanders and Wallonia. Interestingly, the effect goes
in opposite direction: while in Flanders the pro-immigration parties are losing votes in
the post reform elections in municipalities with a higher share of immigrants potential
voters, the very pro-immigration parties are gaining votes in Wallonia. The magnitude
of the estimated coefficients suggests that most of the effect is coming from a change of
natives’ voting behavior.
∗ University
of Bologna. Department of Economics. [email protected].
1
1
Introduction
During the last decades, immigration to European countries has increased exponentially,
contributing to the creation of more ethnically heterogenous societies. Together with the
increase in immigration, politics in Europe has taken a rightward turn, driven by the success
of nationalist and anti immigrants parties. Among scholars, it has risen questions concerning
the relationship between ethnic diversity and political outcomes. Understanding the nature
and the effect of this relationship is important in light of the fact that the political effect of
immigration can produce long lasting consequences in receiving countries through changes
in preferences and policies.
A growing literature is studying the effect of the mere presence of immigrants and the
increasing ethnic diversity on policy outcomes in Europe, through the changes in native
voters’ political attitudes and voting behavior. This is only one of the many channels through
which immigrants can play an effect on receiving countries’ political life. The contribution
of this paper is to show how political and economic outcomes change as a consequence of
an increase in political power of ethnic minorities, given by the extension of voting rights to
immigrants (non citizens) of non EU origin.
Belgium has recently extended the right to vote in local elections to immigrants from
outside the European Union with at least five years of legal residence in the country. The
act providing for non citizen voting was adopted by the Belgian Parliament as the Law of 19
March 2004, and went into effect in 2006. This natural experiment is exploited here to study
how the new group of enfranchised affects political outcomes at municipal level, by looking
at electoral results for Belgian municipalities during the period 1988-2012. There are two
channels through which the 2004 reform can influence Belgian local political outcomes: a
direct channel, driven by creation of a new group of voters, i.e. non citizens of non Eu
origin; and an indirect channel, driven by natives’ reaction to immigrants’ enfranchisement.
If natives perceive immigration as an important issue, they can shift their vote to parties
whose immigration policy increases their utility.
Since the 70s, extending the right to vote to immigrants in local elections has been a
sensitive issue of the political debate in Europe. The active political participation of noncitizens’ is widely recognized as a stimulating factor for immigrants’ integration in the host
society. Supporters of the expansion of voting rights claim that all residents who pay taxes,
contribute to the social security and take part at the community life should have the right to
contribute to the selection of representatives. On the other hand, there is a common fear that
the immigrants’ votes could tilt the political balance with potentially unfavorable outcomes
for natives, e.g. with respect to the level of redistribution. In Belgium, Flemish politicians
were the most resistant to the enfranchisement of immigrants, arguing that the introduction of a new group of voters would shatter the delicate balance of power between Dutch
and French-speaking communities and possibly create a disproportionate benefit for Francophone political parties. Behind anecdotal evidence, there is very little systematic evidence on
the socio-economic consequences of enfranchisement of immigrants. The aim of this paper
2
is to fill this gap by exploiting the 2004 Belgian law.
Belgium is an interesting setting to study the impact of enfranchising non citizens of
non Eu origin. First, Belgium has historically attracted significant immigration flows and
the number of immigrants has steadily increased since the 80s. Second, the timing of the
reform is peculiar: it passed at a time when the debate about immigration in Europe was not
focused on enlarging immigrants’ rights. Third, according to the Belgian Constitution, local
governments can take any initiatives that is beneficial to local interests and no other government has legal responsibility for the concerned field of action. Local governments have
great autonomy and responsibility on a number of important issues, including expenditures
on education, security and social policies, culture, urbanism and environment. Moreover,
Belgium is a country of different linguistic and political realities. The three regions of the
Flanders, Wallonia and Brussels differ in many dimensions, including political preferences
and immigration policy (see Section 2.1). These differences offer the opportunity to explore
heterogeneous effects of the 2004 Law and can provide key insights on the interpretation of
the results.
The empirical strategy adopted here exploits two sources of variation: time variation,
given by the introduction of the reform and cross-sectional variation, given by the differences
in the share of non citizens potential voters (intensity of the treatment) across municipalities.
In the spirit of a difference-in-difference strategy, municipalities with different intensity of
treatment are compared, before and after the reform. The estimation of a fully flexible model
(see section 3.1 for more details) ensures the non violation of common trend assumptions;
moreover, results of some placebo tests performed by using only pre reform elections suggest
that the results can then be interpreted as causal.
The reform has significant effects on elections’ results only in the region of Flanders
and Wallonia. Interestingly, the effect goes in opposite direction: while in Flanders the
pro-immigration parties are losing votes in the post reform elections in municipalities with
a higher share of immigrants potential voters, the very pro-immigration parties are gaining
votes in Wallonia. The magnitude of the estimated coefficients suggests that most of the
effect is coming from a change of natives’ voting behavior. As more extensively discussed
below, Flanders and Wallonia adopt very different immigration policies and citizens of the
two regions have different political preferences (as shown by elections results) and different
attitudes towards immigrants (as shown by the analysis of some questions related to immigration asked in the European Social Survey, see section 4.4). These heterogeneities can
explain why the reactions of natives to the enfranchisement of immigrants goes in opposite
directions in the two regions. Moreover, the decrease in votes for the pro-immigration parties
in the region of Flanders does not seem to be driven by worries about the adverse effect of
immigrants in the economy and the labor market: Belgians leaving in Flanders are significantly more likely than Belgians living in Wallonia to think that immigrants are good for the
ecomomy and they can help to create jobs.
This paper relates to two strands of literature. The first one takes a political economy approach and examines the effects of the extension of voting rights on the size of government
3
(Husted and Kenny 1997, Lott 1999, Cascio and Washington 2014). The main message from
this literature is that the enfranchisement of minorities (e.g. black, poorer or women) determines an increase in welfare or government expenditures, mainly driven by the change of the
median voter. The second strand of literature examines the relationship between the mere
presence of immigrants (and immigration-driven increases in ethnic diversity) and natives’
voting behavior or political attitudes (Razin et al. 2002, Böheim and Mayr 2005, Dahlberg
et al. 2012, Harmon 2013, Barone et al. 2014, Mayda et al. 2015). The negative relationship
between ethnic diversity and left-wing political preferences, as well as the level of public
spending at local level, is confirmed in most studies.
The paper is structured as follows: in Section 2, the institutional setting of Belgium is
discussed; Section 3 presents data and the empirical strategy; in Section 4 results of the
empirical analysis are presented; Section 5 provides some robustness checks and Section 6
concludes.
2
Institutional setting of Belgium
Specific features of the Belgian immigration policy and political system are particularly relevant for the empirical analysis. This section gives a brief overview of these two aspects of
the Belgian context.
2.1
The Belgian immigration policy
In Belgium, competencies over immigration issues are split between the federal state and
the regions. The federal state is responsible for admissions, removals, residence rights and
laws on citizenship of immigrants; while regional authorities have jurisdiction over ‘the reception and integration of immigrants’, by promoting their participation in the host society
(as established by the law of 8 August 1980).
The regions of Flanders and Wallonia adopted very different immigrants’ integration
policies, inspired by diverse values and pursuing contrasting objectives. It results in immigrants having different rights and duties, according to their place of residence. Flanders’
policy highlights the importance of cultural diversity and ethnic identities and combines an
assimilationist policy targeting new comers with a multicultural policy addressed to established ethic minority groups. A large network of implementing actors, coordinated by a centralized organization, administers language courses and a civic integration course (focusing
on rules and regulations, common norms and values), as part of the compulsory integration trajectories. Importantly, non attendance of the courses is punished by the means of an
administrative fine.
The Francophone Belgium, instead, puts emphasis on economic and social inclusion
and promotes it through color-blind policies, as a good strategy to promote assimilation,
opposite to targeted or multiculturalist policies, responsible for stressing differences among
natives and immigrants. The Walloon integration process is very decentralized, and most
4
of the initiatives promoting integration are taken at municipality level and implemented by
local organizations. Immigrants are not obliged to attend integration courses and the the
total budget devoted to integration policy is much lower in Wallonia with respect to Flanders
(Adam and Jacobs 2014).
The region of Brussels combines together Flemish and Francophone integration policies,
led by local organizations, mainly in poor and deprived neighborhoods.
Another relevant difference at regional level concerns parties’ position regarding immigration and immigrants’ rights. On the one hand, Francophone political parties are willing
to promote naturalization as a natural mean for foreigners’ integration; on the other, Flemish parties claim the importance of integration before naturalization and ask for a stricter
immigration policy.
2.2
The Belgian political system
The Belgian electoral system is divided according to linguistic lines: Flemish parties compete for votes in the region of Flanders, while Francophone parties run in the region of
Wallonia. Only in the region of Brussels there are both parties. During the 70s the major
statewide parties split along regional lines, and all parties created after that are organized
at community level and only represent the interest of part of the population. The Belgian
political system can then be classified as a two party systems (Dandoy 2014).
Immigration is a relevant issue in the electoral platforms of Belgian parties, and it has
been highly politicized. The attitudes of local parties toward immigration is recovered by
looking at the manifestos of their national counterparts; more specifically, by looking at the
analysis conducted by Dandoy (2014), who studied the electoral platforms of the main Belgian national parties between 1977 and 2007. Belgian local politics is highly nationalized,
with many national parties taking part at local elections. It happens more in Flanders than
the Walloon and Brussels regions. As Figure 1 reveal, for the local elections in the period
1988-2012, in Flanders, more than 80% of the votes was gained by parties with a national
counterparts (or parties that can be labeled as belonging to one major party family with a
national counterpart); the share is much lower (about 40%) in the other two regions, where
municipal elections still remain more ‘localized’, i.e. there are many local parties with no
national counterparts running for elections.
Many significant aspects come out from the analysis of national parties’ political manifestos and allow constructing a rank of parties over immigration attitudes. First, it emerges
that, overall, Flemish parties allocate more attention to immigration than Francophone parties. Second, as expected, extreme right parties’ manifestos dedicate more space to immigration issues than other parties, with an exception. When looking at each single election in
the period 1977-2007, it emerges that during the 90s the Flemish liberal party focused on the
issue of immigration more than any other party. Third, by looking at a specific policy sector
of immigration, namely immigration integration, it appears that extreme-right and liberal
parties dedicate more attention to the issue with respect to socialist and Christian Democrat
5
parties. Last, when looking at the specific issues of the migration debate a clear pattern
emerges in both regions: while Christian Democrat and socialist parties give more space to
the discussion of democracy and rights, including the debate on voting rights; extreme-right
and liberal parties focus on law and order, with special emphasis on the relation between
immigrants and crime and the implications for public order. Given these elements of the
parties’ manifestos, main parties participating at local election are ranked according to four
categories from very-pro to very-anti immigration parties. In Table 1, the list of parties
according to their attitude toward immigration is reported.
3
Data and key variables
Data come from multiple sources. As for the outcomes variables, the focus is on both election
results and expenditures at municipal level. Data on five election rounds (1988,1994 2000
before the reform and 2006, 2012 after the reform) have been collected from the web, using
Python1 . The regional authorities of Flanders provided data on municipal expenditures and
revenues at local level (for the period 2003-2013).
The Ministry of Interior released data on potential and registered non Eu voters for local
elections in 2006 and 2012. Data on the characteristics of the Belgian municipalities over
time are (mainly) available online through the Statistics Belgium2 .
The variable of interest in order to study the effect of enfranchising non citizens of non
Eu origin is defined as follows:
pot_voters =
NC_M
V
(1)
where NC_M is the number of potential voters of non Eu origin who have no Belgian
citizenship and V is the remaining population of potential voters (i.e. Belgians and other Eu
citizens).
Table 2 shows the share of potential non Eu non citizens voters measured in 2006 and
2012 elections.3 Interestingly, this share has increased over time, above all in Flanders.
Moreover, it is important to notice that potential non Eu voters do not spread equally across
regions: the municipalities of the Brussels region have a much higher share, while Flanders
and Wallonia have a smaller and similar share of non Eu potential voters.
The final sample used for the analysis consists of 580 municipalities, observed in five
points in time, corresponding to each municipal election during the period 1988-2012.4 In
Table 3, summary statistics on data across the five rounds of elections are reported. In the
region of Flanders, the pro-immigration party is the one that gained the majority of votes,
1 Sources:
all regions 1988-2000; Region of Wallonia 2000-2006, 2012; Region of Flanders 2006 2012;
Region of Bruxelles 2006-2012.
2 http://statbel.fgov.be/.
3 The variable as measured in 2006 is considered in the empirical analysis, however results are similar when
the 2012 share is used.
4 The nine municipalities of the German-speaking community are not considered in the analysis.
6
however also the anti and very-anti immigration parties have a considerable share of votes.
The very-pro immigration parties have the majority of votes in Wallonia where, differently
from Flanders, the anti-immigration parties only gain a small share of votes. The two regions
have comparable and very high citizens’ turnout, while the registration rate among non Eu5
is much lower in Flanders than in Wallonia, about 12% and 25% respectively. In the region
of Brussels, the votes across parties are distributed more evenly, with the anti-immigration
party having a slightly higher share of votes with respect to the very pro-immigration parties.
The turnout among Belgians is a bot lower if compared to the other two regions and the
registration rate among non Eu is also low. The winning margin, i.e. the difference in the
share of votes between the first and the second party, is pretty high in the three regions; close
elections are not common at local level in Belgium.
Table 4 report statistics on demographic characteristics of Belgian municipalities. On
average, municipalities in Flanders and Wallonia have less then twenty thousand inhabitants,
while municipalities in Brussels region are bigger. Unemployment rate is especially high in
Wallonia, where also the share of foreigners is higher with respect to Flanders.
3.1
Empirical strategy
The empirical strategy exploits two sources of variation: the first is time variation coming
from the introduction of the reform; the second source of variation is cross-sectional and
arises from the differences in municipalities’ share of non Eu immigrants allowed to vote.
In the spirit of a differences-in-differences strategy, election results of municipalities with
more immigrants entitled to vote are compared with municipalities with a smaller share of
immigrant voters (intensity of the treatment), before and after the reform.
The introduction of municipality and time-period fixed effects controls for all timeinvariant differences across municipalities and secular changes over time. The strategy relies
on the absence of any other shocks occurred around the same time the reform was introduced and correlated with the share of potential immigrant voters. The latter identification
concern is addressed by controlling for time and municipality-varying factors that may bias
the estimates, such as population density, population size (in logarithmic form), the share of
foreign population and the unemployment rate. In addition, controls for turnout, a dummy
for winning incumbent and a dummy for being incumbent are added.
The analysis will start with a focus on the parameter δ in equation (2) below:
ymt = α + ηm + γt + δ pot_votersm ∗ postt + εmt
(2)
where ymt is an electoral (or economic) outcomes, ηm is a municipality fixed effect, γt an election (or year, depending on having a political or economic outcome) fixed effect, pot_votersm
5 The
registration rate among non Eu can be considered a good proxy for turnout: non citizens who want to
vote are obliged to register prior to the election and, once registered, if they do not show up at the pools they
have to pay an administrative fine.
7
is the fraction of non Eu non citizens allowed to vote, as it is measured in 2006 (the variable
that captures the treatment intensity).
The availability of two or more pre- and post-treatment periods allows to estimate a flexible model that includes leads and lags of the treatment. This allows to assess the presence
of anticipatory effects or other violations of the common trend assumption. Formally, the
model in equation (3) below is estimated:
T
ymt = α + ηm + γt +
∑
j
δ j pot_votersm ∗ It + β Xmt + εmt
(3)
j=t+1
where everything is defined as above, with the exception that the effect of the treatment is
identified in each election going from t+1 to T (with t being the reference category) and a set
of time-varying municipality controls (as listed above) is added.
Equation (3) imposes no parametric assumptions on the pre-treatment dynamics and allows for a the test of the null hypothesis of no common pre-treatment trends (H0 : δ j = 0
for all pre-treatment periods). Moreover, it also allows the implementation of tests on the
dynamics of the treatment effect, i.e, it is possible to test whether the effect is constant in the
post-treatment period.
4
Results
This section presents the results of the effect of the reform on political and economic outcomes, by region. For what concerns political outcomes, first, all labeled parties are considered, then the analysis will focus on outcomes for which the reform was effective.
4.1
Flanders
Table 5 show results on the share of votes taken by each family of parties in Flanders. The
reform significantly affects only the pro-immigrant parties in the region, which are losing
power in the post reform period. The magnitude of the coefficient indicates that an increase
of 1 p.p. (percentage point) in the treatment determines a decrease of more than 2 p.p. in the
share of votes to the pro-immigrant party. There are no significant results on the outcomes
of the other parties.
From now on, the focus will be on the share of votes to the pro-immigrant parties.
In order to give a causal interpretation to the effect of the reform, municipalities with different intensity of the treatment must have similar pre reform trend in the outcome variable.
This hypothesis can be tested by estimating a fully flexible model, as expressed in equation
(3). Results of the flexible estimates for Flanders are reported in Table 6. In all columns, the
coefficients associated to the pre-treatment periods are small and non significantly different
from zero; while there is a negative and increasing (in absolute value) effect in the post treatment election rounds. These results are also robust to the inclusion of district specific time
trend. Figure 2 plots the coefficients of the interactions between the intensity of the treatment
8
and each election’s dummies, as reported in column (5). There is a zero and flat effect before
the 2004 reform and a negative and significant effect starting from 2006 election. Figure 3
plots the coefficients of a fully flexible estimates with all controls where the dependent variable is the probability of having a very anti-immigration mayor. Municipalities with a higher
share of immigrant potential voters have a higher probability of having an anti-immigration
mayor in the post reform elections.
In Table 7 equation (2) is estimated by using a restricted sample, accounting only for
1988 to 2000 elections. In this subsample a placebo effect of the reform is estimated, by
assuming that the reform took place in 1994 or 2000. Given that the reform was effective
only for the 2006 election onwards, finding significant effects in 1994 or 2000 elections
would suggest violations of the identifying assumptions, since they could not be attributed
to the real reform. Conversely, finding no effects on this subsample suggest that the baseline
estimates can be interpreted as causal. In column (1) of Table 7 the sample is restricted to
three rounds of election, and the treatment is imposed in 1994 and 2000. In column (2), 2000
is used as a fake post treatment period. In column (3) only elections in 1994 and 2000 are
considered and 2000 is the post reform period. The coefficients of the interaction between the
post dummy and the treatment intensity are always much smaller than in Table 5 and they
are never significantly different from zero. The placebo experiments suggest no evidence
of a differential relationship between share of votes to the pro-immigration parties and the
treatment intensity in the pre reform elections.
If voting behavior reflects voters’ demand for public goods, changes in municipalities’
expenditures and revenues should be expected as a consequence of the changes in parties’
share of votes. In the case of Flanders, given that pro-immigrantion parties also favor more
redistribution, less public expenditures and revenues are expected as a result of the reducing
power of the pro-immigration parties. Results in Table 8 confirm this expectations and show
that municipalities with a higher treatment experience a higher decrease in total per capita
expenditures and per capita revenues in the post reform period.
4.2
Wallonia
When looking at the results for the region of Wallonia, an opposite effect of the reform with
respect to Flanders emerges: the very pro-immigrantion parties gain votes in municipalities
where the share of potential non Eu voters is higher. More precisely, as shown in Table 9, an
increase of 1 p.p. in the treatment determines an increase of about 3 p.p in the share of votes
to the very pro-immigrant parties.
In order to interpret causally the previous result, there should be no violation of the
common trend assumption. The fully flexible estimates, reported in Table 10, point to similar
pre reform trends in the outcome variable: the interacted coefficients are never significantly
different from zero in the pre-reform elections. Figure 4 reports the interacted coefficients
from column (5) in table 10, for a better visual inspection of the effect.
The placebo experiments for Wallonia are reported in Table 11. As for Flanders, only a
9
subsample of elections is considered and the treatment is imposed in the pre reform period.
The coefficients of the interaction between the dummy post and the treatment intensity are
never significantly different from zero, pointing to a non differential relationship between
share of votes to the very pro-immigrants party and the treatment intensity in the pre reform
elections.
4.3
Brussels
Table 12 reports results of the estimation of equation (2) for the 19 municipalities of the
Brussels region. The enfranchisement of non citizens of non Eu origin has a positive effect
on the share of votes of the pro immigration parties, that gains a bit less than 1 p.p. of votes
as the treatment intensity increases by 1 p.p.
However, a deeper analysis of this effect, as shown by the fully flexible estimates in Table
13 points to no evidence of a casual effect of the reform. Specifically, when controlling
for municipalities’ time varying characteristics, post reform coefficients are not statistically
significant.
4.4
European Social Survey
The European Social Survey is a cross national survey, that collects information on attitudes,
beliefs and behavior, through face-to-face interviews across European countries. The 2002
and 2004 waves are used here to compare the attitudes towards immigrants as well as the
fears about immigration across the three Belgian regions.6 Only respondents who declare to
be born in Belgium are considered in the analysis. Each pair of columns in the following
tables report, respectively, the average response by region and the coefficient for the difference across regions. The results in Table 14 show that Belgians living in Flanders are, on
average, more likely to say that immigrants are good for the economy of the country and that
they contribute to the creation of new jobs more than to take jobs away. The better economic
conditions of Flanders with respect to Wallonia can explain why in Flanders citizens are less
worried about the economic impact of immigrants. Interestingly, however, as shown in Table
15 Belgians leaving in the Walloon region are more open to let in more immigrants from
poor countries and believe that foreigners can enriched the country cultural life more than do
Belgians in Flanders. Moreover, in Wallonia, Belgians are significantly more likely to have
an immigrant friend or a colleague with respect to Flanders.
The differences highlighted above suggest that the lost of political power of pro-immigration
parties in Flanders is not driven by citizens being worried about the adverse effects of immigrants in the economy and the labor market. Rather, Flanders’ citizens having less interactions with immigrants and being less prone to have more immigrants can be thought as a
result of the different policies pursued by each region, which determine citizens’ preferences
6 Only the waves before the reform are used: Belgians’ beliefs collected after can be biased by the reform
itself.
10
and attitudes toward immigrants.
5
5.1
Robustness checks
Internal Migration
The reform can potentially change the patterns of migration within Belgium. If it happens,
the changes in the elections’ results might be due to changes in the composition of voters,
rather than to the enfranchisement of a new ethnic group.
In this section, data on internal migration over 25 years in Belgium are exploited in order
to show that these movements do not represent a threat to the validity of previous results.
Figure 5 plots the yearly average of people entering or leaving a municipality, expressed
as a share of the total population, separately for the three regions over a 25 years long period.
In Wallonia, internal movements are more sizable than in the Flanders and in both regions the
share of people entering is bigger than the share of people moving out. The opposite is true
for the Brussels region, that experiences more out migration towards the other two regions
of the country. Moreover, there is a slightly increasing trend in internal movement over time
but, on average, there is not a change in the movement coinciding with the introduction of
the reform in 2004.
In order to exclude a systematic relation between Belgian internal migration and the share
of non citizens of non Eu origin, the share of people entering and exiting a municipality is
used as outcome variable in an equation as in equation (3). The dummy for post takes here
value 1 starting from 2004, the year of the reform. Results in Table 16 suggest that internal
movements are not changing differently pre and post reform in municipalities with different
share of non Eu non citizens allowed to vote. This is true for both, the share of people
entering and exiting municipalities in the region of the Flanders and Wallonia. These results
ensure that if any changes in the composition of the voters happen after the reform, they are
not affected by the intensity of the treatment exploited in this paper. Previous results are the
not biased by internal migration movements.
5.2
The ‘Quick Citizenship Act’
In March 2000, the so called ‘Quick Citizenship Act’ came into effect in Belgium. According
to this law, foreign nationals legally resident in Belgium for three years and refugees resident
for two years can submit an application for naturalization. As a result of this law, there was a
huge increase in naturalization rate in Belgium and, since voting is mandatory for Belgians,
the new citizens eligible as voters (i.e. citizens aged at least 18 years, people who have not
been excluded from the right to vote or whose right to vote has been suspended, people who
have never been given a criminal sentence) could take part at the elections.
This section is devoted to show that the naturalization law does not drive or bias previous
results. The focus in this section will be on election outcomes in Flanders and Wallonia for
11
which there is a significant effect of the 2004 reform.
The exogenous change in naturalization driven by the 2000 law is computed as follows:
nat_change =
nat2000 − nat1999
∗ 100
nat1999
(4)
Table 17 displays the naturalization growth rate for the whole country and the three regions separately: on average, between 1999 and 2000 naturalizations growth rate is more
than 100%.
To start with, the effect of the naturalization law is analyzed, by estimating an equation
as equation (3), where the intensity of the treatment is given by the variable nat_change and
the elections post reform are 2000, 2006 and 2012.
Table 18 show the effect of the naturalization law in Flanders: from column (1) to (3)
the outcome variable is the share of votes taken by the pro-immigrants’ party; in column
(1) the naturalization growth rate is interacted with a dummy post reform, while in column
(2) and (3) the treatment variable is interacted with a dummy for each election year. In
the last column only election from 1988 to 2000 are considered. In columns (4) to (6)
the same analysis is performed by using as outcome variable the probability of having a
mayor from very anti immigration parties. In Table 19 the same results are shown for the
region of Wallonia, where the outcome variable is the share of votes taken by the very pro
immigrantion parties.
The effect of the 2000 reform, as it is captured by the naturalization growth rate, is very
small and never statistically significant from zero. It suggests that municipalities experiencing a higher naturalization growth rate do not experience post-2000 changes in elections
outcomes different from municipalities with a lower naturalization growth rate.
In Table 20 and 21 the effects of the two reforms are analyzed together, respectively for
Flanders and Wallonia: while the effect of the naturalization law are always small and statistically not significant, the effect of enfranchising non Eu immigrants remains statistically
significant.
6
Concluding Remarks
This paper studies the effect of granting non citizens of non Eu origin with the right to
vote in local elections on political and economic outcomes. The introduction of a reform in
Belgium in 2004 is exploited as an exogenous variation. According to the refrom’s rules, non
citizens of non Eu orign legally residing in the country for at least five years can vote at local
elections. It generates variation acorss municipalities in the share of non Eu immigrants who
are potential voters. This cross sectional variation, interacted with the time variation, coming
from the introduction of the reform, is exploited as an exogenous shock in a difference in
difference framework.
Results point to an opposite effect of the reform in the regions of Flanders and Wallonia:
while in the former the main effect is a decrease in the votes for the pro-immigrants parties
12
and, consequently, a reduction in welfare expenditures and total revenues; in the latter the reform determines an increase of votes to the left and pro immigrants parties 7 . The magnitude
of the effects, if compared with the small group of new voters, suggests that the law generates
a reaction in natives’ voting behavior. Results can be interpreted as causal, given that there
is no evidence of a violation of the common trends assumption and that plecebo experiments
show no significant diferences across municipalities with different treatment intensity in the
pre reform elections.
As discussed in section 2.1, Flanders and Wallonia pursue very different immigration
policies and have an opposite attitude toward immigration. Moreover, the two regions are
characterized by a very different economic and demographic context (Dandoy 2014): compared to Wallonia, Flanders are a more prosperous economy, with no need of immigrant
workers. These differences might explain the results: the rich Flanders have stronger (negative) ethnic preferences and care less about public good, then natives vote less for the pro
immigrants and pro public good parties. This is also consistent with the fact that the lost of
political power of pro-immigration parties in Flanders is not driven by citizens being worried
about the adverse effects of immigrants in the economy and the labor market, as shown in
section 4.4.
Most of the existing literature studying the political effect of migration in Europe focuses
on the impact of the mere presence of immigrants on natives’ local behavior. The main contribution of this paper is to show that a big natives’ changes in voting behavior comes from
the enfranchisement of an ethnically different group. The opposite results on the two regions
suggest that enfranchisement per se has not necessarily positive effects for immigrants: if
they are a small and non-integrated group, as in the case of Flanders, the reaction of natives,
who support less the pro immigrants parties, result in a decrease in the demand public goods,
that mostly hurts the low income population, including immigrants.
7 Results
in the region of Brussels do not allow for a causal interpretation of the reform effect.
13
References
Adam, I. and D. Jacobs (2014). Divided on immigration, two models for integration. the
multilevel governance of immigration and integration in belgium. In The Politics of Immigration in Multi-Level States, pp. 65–85. Springer.
Barone, G., G. De Blasio, and P. Naticchioni (2014). Mr. rossi, mr. hu and politics: The role
of immigration in shaping natives’ political preferences.
Böheim, R. and K. Mayr (2005). Immigration and public spending. IZA Discussion Paper.
Cascio, E. U. and E. Washington (2014). Valuing the vote: The redistribution of voting
rights and state funds following the voting rights act of 1965*. Quarterly Journal of
Economics 129(1).
Dahlberg, M., K. Edmark, and H. Lundqvist (2012). Ethnic diversity and preferences for
redistribution. Journal of Political Economy 120(1), 41–76.
Dandoy, R. (2014). Regionalist parties and immigration in belgium. In The Politics of
Immigration in Multi-Level States, pp. 200–222. Springer.
Harmon, N. A. (2013). Immigration ethnic diversity and political outcomes.
Husted, T. A. and L. W. Kenny (1997). The effect of the expansion of the voting franchise
on the size of government. Journal of Political Economy, 54–82.
Lott, J. R. (1999). How dramatically did women’s suffrage change the size and scope of
government? Journal of Political Economy 107(6 Part 1), 1163–1198.
Mayda, A. M., G. Peri, and W. Steingress (2015). Immigration to the us: A problem for the
republicans or the democrats?
Razin, A., E. Sadka, and P. Swagel (2002). Tax burden and migration: a political economy
theory and evidence. Journal of Public Economics 85(2), 167–190.
14
7
Figures and Tables
0
20
40
60
80
Figure 1: Share of local parties labelled according to their national counterparts
1988 1994 2000 2006 2012
1988 1994 2000 2006 2012
1988 1994 2000 2006 2012
Flanders
Brussels
Wallonia
-10
-5
0
5
Figure 2: Interacted coefficients from fully flexible estimates: share pro-immigration parties
- Flanders
1994
2000
2004
15
2006
2012
-.1
0
.1
.2
.3
.4
Figure 3: Interacted coefficients from fully flexible estimates: very anti-immigration mayor
- Flanders
1994
2000
2004
2006
2012
-5
0
5
10
15
Figure 4: Interacted coefficients from fully flexible estimates: share very pro-immigration
parties - Wallonia
1994
2000
2004
16
2006
2012
2
4
6
8
10
Figure 5: Internal Migration
1990
1995
2000
2005
Exit - Brussels
Entry - Wallonia
Entry - Flanders
2010
2015
Entry - Brussels
Exit - Wallonia
Exit - Flanders
Table 1: List of parties according to their attitudes toward immigration
Very pro-imm
Pro-imm
Committee for Another Policy (CAP)
Liberal Reformist Party (PRL)
Communist Party (PCB)
Lijst Dedecker
Egalité
Mouvement Rï¿ 12 formateur (MR)
Gauche
Open Flemish Liberals and Democrats (VLD)
Parti Socialiste (PS)
Parti des Pensionnes
Socialist Party Differently (sp.a.)
Vivant
Workers’ Party of Belgium (PVDA, PTB)
Anti-imm
Centre démocrate humaniste (CDH)
Christelijke Volkspartij (CVP)
Christian Democratic and Flemish (CDV)
Christian Social Party (PSC)
Very anti-imm
Agir
Front National (FN)
New Flemish Alliance (N-VA)
Rassemblement Wallon (RW)
Vlaams Belang (VB)
Table 2: Potential non citizens non Eu voters as a percentage of all other voters
Belgium
2006 2012 Difference
0.6% 0.79%
32%
Flanders 0.41% 0.62%
Wallonia 0.46% 0.59%
Brussels 5.42% 6.06%
51%
28%
11%
Note: Source: data provided by the Belgian Ministry of Interior on potential non Eu non citizens voters during
2006 and 2012 elections.
17
Table 3: Summary statistics: Election data
Mean Std. Dev. Min. Max. Obs
Flanders
Very pro-imm
Pro-imm
Anti-imm
Very anti-imm
Belgians’ turnout
Non eu registration rate
Winning incumbent
Winning share
13.2
32
15.4
12.6
94.4
11.7
0.8
16.2
11.6
17.2
13.5
12.1
3.3
11.9
0.4
13.3
Wallonia
Very pro-imm
Pro-imm
Anti-imm
Very anti-imm
Belgians’ turnout
Non eu registration rate
Winning incumbent
Winning share
23.6
7.1
9.7
0.7
93.1
24.5
0.8
21.5
23.1
13.2
14.7
3.8
2.8
19
0.4
15.7
0
100 1263
0
69 1263
0
68.8 1263
0
55.8 1263
79.2 100 1263
0
100 500
0
1 1262
0
82 1263
Brussels
Very pro-imm
Pro-imm
Anti-imm
Very anti-imm
Belgians’ turnout
Non eu registration rate
Winning incumbent
Winning share
13.6
6.6
13.9
12.7
85.3
16.1
0.7
19.5
12
6.5
13
11.6
2.5
3.7
0.4
12.6
0
0
0
0
77.8
7
0
1.4
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
60.2
78.5
57.9
68.8
100
100
1
81.8
54.4
23.5
54.2
52.1
89.9
23.8
1
50
1540
1540
1540
1540
1540
616
1540
1540
95
95
95
95
95
38
95
95
Note: The share of votes for all parties is computed as the average of five rounds of local elections. Belgians’
turnout is computed for all election, except 2000 elections. Non Eu registration rate is computed for 2006 and
2012 elections.
18
Table 4: Summary statistics: Demographic Data
Mean
Std. Dev.
Flanders
Population
19545.6 31913.2
Density
5151.7 4484.8
Log of Population
9.5
0.8
Share of foreigners
3.9
5.2
in the population
Unemployment rate
2.6
2.2
Wallonia
Population
13096.1 21090.9
Density
3083.3 4390.1
Log of Population
9
0.9
Share of foreigners
6.2
5.3
in the population
Unemployment rate
6
5.3
Min.
Max.
Obs
85
491
4.4
0
507911
33683.7
13.1
47.7
1536
1536
1536
1536
0
6.2
1536
1358
139.3
7.2
0.8
208021
35137
12.2
37.7
1262
1262
1262
1262
0
14.4
1262
Brussels
Population
53393 34522.5 15974 168576
Density
90815.8 52193.4 18650.7 238178
Log of Population
10.7
0.6
9.7
12
Share of foreigners
26.8
10.7
9.3
57.1
in the population
Unemployment rate
10
8.2
0
17.6
95
95
95
95
95
Note: Unemployment rate is measured at provincial level for 2000, 2006 and 2012 elections.
Table 5: Average Pre/Post effect of immigrants’ enfranchisement: Flanders
(1)
(2)
(3)
(4)
Veri pro-imm Pro-imm Anti-imm Very anti-imm
Pot_voters*Post
Observations
R-squared
Municipalities’ indicators
Years of elections’ indicators
District Time Trend
0.067
(1.322)
-2.039**
(0.859)
0.577
(1.151)
0.050
(0.989)
1,540
0.777
YES
YES
NO
1,540
0.770
YES
YES
NO
1,540
0.689
YES
YES
NO
1,540
0.674
YES
YES
NO
Note. The dependent variable is the share of votes taken by each party. Standard errors clustered at the municipality level
are in parentheses. Significance at the 10 % level is represented by *, at the 5% level by **, and at the 1% level by ***.
19
Table 6: Fully Flexible Estimates: Flanders
(1)
(2)
(3)
(4)
Pro-imm Pro-imm Pro-imm Pro-imm
Pot_voters*1994
Pot_voters*2000
Pot_voters*2006
Pot_voters*2012
-0.986
(1.477)
-1.341
(1.328)
-1.039
(1.501)
-1.435
(1.491)
-0.928
(2.035)
-1.474
(1.754)
-0.928
(2.036)
-1.478
(1.755)
-0.661
(1.941)
-0.701
(1.694)
-2.790* -3.163* -4.398** -4.401**
(1.662) (1.882) (2.123) (2.119)
-4.345** -5.099** -5.945** -5.947**
(2.118) (2.472) (2.574) (2.570)
-3.609*
(2.040)
-4.959**
(2.436)
-3.311
-1.998
-1.983
(19.178) (18.995) (19.034)
0.001
0.001
0.001
(0.001) (0.001) (0.001)
-0.439
-0.439
(0.378) (0.380)
0.001
0.001
(0.260) (0.260)
-0.039
-0.038
(0.239) (0.242)
0.213
0.214
(0.256) (0.256)
0.151
0.151
(0.272) (0.272)
-0.024
(0.870)
-2.462
(17.982)
0.001
(0.001)
-0.345
(0.349)
-0.026
(0.246)
-0.079
(0.231)
0.177
(0.260)
0.094
(0.250)
0.136
(0.850)
3.632***
(1.046)
2.074***
(0.772)
-0.018
(0.092)
Log of Population
Population Density
Share of Foreigners
Share of Foreigners*1994
Share of Foreigners*2000
Share of Foreigners*2006
Share of Foreigners*2012
Unemployment Rate
Being Incumbent
Winning Incumbent
Turnout
Observations
R-squared
Municipalities’ indicators
Years of elections’ indicators
District Time Trend
(5)
Pro-imm
1,540
0.804
YES
YES
YES
1,540
0.804
YES
YES
YES
1,540
0.805
YES
YES
YES
1,540
0.805
YES
YES
YES
1,540
0.809
YES
YES
YES
Note. The dependent variable is the share of votes taken by the pro-immigration parties. Standard errors clustered at the municipality
level are in parentheses. Significance at the 10 % level is represented by *, at the 5% level by **, and at the 1% level by ***.
20
Table 7: Placebo Experiments: Flanders
(1)
(2)
Pre=1988
Pre=1988,1994
Post=1994,2000
Post=2000
(3)
Pre=1994
Post=2000
Pot_voters*Post
0.709
(2.329)
-0.052
(2.033)
0.474
(3.294)
Log of Population
-19.934
(31.990)
0.005*
(0.003)
-0.081
(0.790)
-0.157
(0.324)
-0.253
(0.354)
0.420
(1.684)
-1.006
(1.957)
2.743**
(1.357)
1.102*
(0.656)
-21.784
(30.894)
0.006*
(0.003)
-0.115
(0.837)
-0.114
(0.273)
-0.212
(0.338)
0.432
(1.695)
-1.013
(1.967)
2.707**
(1.352)
1.070*
(0.636)
6.270
(83.466)
0.006
(0.009)
-0.274
(1.829)
924
0.877
YES
YES
YES
924
0.877
YES
YES
YES
616
0.937
YES
YES
YES
Population Density
Share of Foreigners
Share of Foreigners*1994
Share of Foreigners*2000
Unemployment Rate
Being Incumbent
Winning Incumbent
Turnout
Observations
R-squared
Municipalities’ indicators
Years of elections’ indicators
District Time Trend
-0.174
(0.418)
3.948
(4.612)
-1.094
(3.798)
3.435
(2.326)
0.314
(2.208)
Note. The dependent variable is the share of votes taken by the pro-immigration parties. Standard errors clustered at the
municipality level are in parentheses. Significance at the 10 % level is represented by *, at the 5% level by **, and at the 1%
level by ***.
21
Table 8: Expenditures and revenues: Flanders
(1)
(2)
Per capita
Log-Expenditures
Treatment×Post
-0.032**
(0.013)
Treatment×I round after the law
(4)
Per capita
Log-Revenues
-0.030**
(0.015)
-0.031**
(0.013)
-0.011
(0.022)
Treatment×II round after the law
Observations
R-squared
Municipalities’ indicators
Years of elections’ indicators
District Time Trend
Share of foreigners×year
District Time Trend
(3)
3,076
0.773
YES
YES
YES
YES
YES
3,076
0.773
YES
YES
YES
YES
YES
-0.028*
(0.015)
0.001
(0.028)
3,076
0.674
YES
YES
YES
YES
YES
3,076
0.675
YES
YES
YES
YES
YES
Note. The dependent variable is the log of per capita expenditures and revenues from 2003 to 2013. Standard errors clustered
at the municipality level are in parentheses. Significance at the 10 % level is represented by *, at the 5% level by **, and at
the 1% level by ***.
Table 9: Average Pre/Post effect of immigrants’ enfranchisement: Wallonia
(1)
(2)
(3)
(4)
Veri pro-imm Pro-imm Anti-imm Very anti-imm
Pot_voters*Post
Observations
R-squared
Municipalities’ indicators
Years of elections’ indicators
District Time Trend
3.315***
(1.014)
-0.274
(0.540)
0.346
(0.872)
0.178
(0.384)
1,263
0.850
YES
YES
NO
1,263
0.709
YES
YES
NO
1,263
0.714
YES
YES
NO
1,263
0.256
YES
YES
NO
Note The dependent variable is the share of votes taken by each party. Standard errors clustered at the municipality level are
in parentheses. Significance at the 10 % level is represented by *, at the 5% level by **, and at the 1% level by ***.
22
Table 10: Fully Flexible Estimates: Wallonia
Pot_voters*1994
Pot_voters*2000
Pot_voters*2006
Pot_voters*2012
(1)
(2)
(3)
(4)
Very
Very
Very
Very
pro-imm pro-imm pro-imm pro-imm
(5)
Very
pro-imm
-0.391
(1.070)
1.890
(1.368)
-0.107
(1.836)
2.134
(2.425)
-0.207
(1.836)
1.810
(2.255)
3.099* 3.315* 6.400** 6.407**
(1.817) (1.846) (2.604) (2.621)
5.116** 5.170** 6.618** 6.630**
(2.102) (2.127) (2.951) (2.960)
5.986**
(2.451)
5.803**
(2.812)
1.325
-2.801
-2.964
(16.989) (17.251) (17.230)
0.001
0.001
0.001
(0.003) (0.003) (0.003)
0.122
0.114
(0.485) (0.486)
-0.072
-0.062
(0.230) (0.231)
-0.076
-0.100
(0.313) (0.312)
-0.832** -0.850**
(0.417) (0.417)
-0.558
-0.565
(0.474) (0.477)
0.306
(0.314)
-3.978
(16.958)
0.001
(0.003)
0.117
(0.464)
-0.095
(0.233)
-0.106
(0.294)
-0.894**
(0.420)
-0.535
(0.440)
0.271
(0.321)
5.916***
(2.065)
-0.818
(1.103)
-0.068
(0.317)
Log of Population
Population Density
Share of Foreigners
Share of Foreigners*1994
Share of Foreigners*2000
Share of Foreigners*2006
Share of Foreigners*2012
Unemployment Rate
-0.329
(1.063)
2.139
(1.430)
-0.084
(1.835)
2.088
(2.414)
Being Incumbent
Winning Incumbent
Turnout
Observations
R-squared
Municipalities’ indicators
Years of elections’ indicators
District Time Trend
1,263
0.881
YES
YES
YES
1,263
0.881
YES
YES
YES
1,263
0.883
YES
YES
YES
1,263
0.883
YES
YES
YES
1,263
0.887
YES
YES
YES
Note. The dependent variable is the share of votes taken by the very pro-immigration parties. Standard errors clustered at the
municipality level are in parentheses. Significance at the 10 % level is represented by *, at the 5% level by **, and at the 1% level
by ***.
23
Table 11: Placebo Experiments: Wallonia
(1)
(2)
Pre=1988
Pre=1988,1994
Post=1994,2000
Post=2000
Pot_voters*Post
Log of Population
Population Density
Share of Foreigners
Share of Foreigners*1994
Share of Foreigners*2000
Unemployment Rate
Being Incumbent
Winning Incumbent
Turnout
Observations
R-squared
Municipalities’ indicators
Years of elections’ indicators
District Time Trend
Controls
(3)
Pre=1994
Post=2000
0.182
(2.247)
6.522
(22.895)
-0.001
(0.005)
0.320
(0.623)
-0.067
(0.317)
0.060
(0.464)
0.617
(0.584)
5.261**
(2.451)
-0.603
(1.814)
0.128
(0.501)
2.962
(1.900)
7.532
(23.089)
-0.001
(0.004)
0.727
(0.679)
0.009
(0.233)
-0.028
(0.399)
0.607
(0.589)
5.254**
(2.471)
-0.454
(1.812)
0.154
(0.521)
4.003
(3.738)
8.325
(57.629)
0.001
(0.010)
1.312
(1.812)
756
0.939
YES
YES
YES
YES
756
0.939
YES
YES
YES
YES
504
0.970
YES
YES
YES
YES
-0.154
(0.420)
0.477
(1.293)
3.602
(5.646)
4.395
(3.879)
2.812*
(1.559)
Note. The dependent variable is the share of votes taken by the very pro-immigration parties. Standard errors clustered at
the municipality level are in parentheses. Significance at the 10 % level is represented by *, at the 5% level by **, and at the
1% level by ***.
24
Table 12: Average Pre/Post effect of immigrants’ enfranchisement: Brussels
(1)
(2)
(3)
Veri pro-imm Pro-imm Anti-imm
Pot_voters*Post
Observations
R-squared
Municipalities’ indicators
Years of elections’ indicators
District Time Trend
(4)
Very anti-imm
0.284
(0.391)
0.784**
(0.351)
-0.212
(0.540)
0.524
(0.408)
95
0.593
YES
YES
NO
95
0.524
YES
YES
NO
95
0.465
YES
YES
NO
95
0.667
YES
YES
NO
Note The dependent variable is the share of votes taken by each party. Robust standard errors are in parentheses. Significance at the 10
% level is represented by *, at the 5% level by **, and at the 1% level by ***.
25
Table 13: Fully Flexible Estimates: Brussels
(1)
(2)
(3)
(4)
(5)
Pro-imm Pro-imm Pro-imm Pro-imm Pro-imm
Pot_voters*1994
Pot_voters*2000
Pot_voters*2006
Pot_voters*2012
0.551
0.553
0.496
(0.429)
(0.432) (0.882)
1.069*** 1.074*** 0.549
(0.378)
(0.373) (1.538)
0.496
(0.882)
0.549
(1.538)
0.084
(0.927)
-0.264
(1.876)
0.979** 0.987** -0.026
(0.489)
(0.476) (2.061)
1.549*** 1.558*** 0.679
(0.456)
(0.507) (2.254)
-0.026
(2.061)
0.679
(2.254)
-1.168
(2.580)
-0.429
(2.788)
Log of Population
-2.766
17.893 17.893 28.102
(27.955) (30.536) (30.536) (32.659)
0.000
-0.000
-0.000
-0.000
(0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000)
-0.451
-0.451
-0.790
(0.723) (0.723) (0.869)
-0.027
-0.027
0.069
(0.204) (0.204) (0.209)
-0.100
-0.100
0.071
(0.295) (0.295) (0.341)
-0.066
-0.066
0.116
(0.477) (0.477) (0.516)
-0.116
-0.116
0.124
(0.569) (0.569) (0.663)
-2.323
(1.656)
0.355
(0.581)
Population Density
Share of Foreigners
Share of Foreigners*1994
Share of Foreigners*2000
Share of Foreigners*2006
Share of Foreigners*2012
Winning Incumbent
Turnout
Observations
R-squared
Municipalities’ indicators
Years of elections’ indicators
District Time Trend
Share of foreigners*Election Year
95
0.676
YES
YES
YES
YES
95
0.677
YES
YES
YES
YES
95
0.693
YES
YES
YES
YES
95
0.693
YES
YES
YES
YES
95
0.708
YES
YES
YES
YES
Note. The dependent variable is the share of votes taken by the pro-immigration parties. Robust standard are in parentheses.
Significance at the 10 % level is represented by *, at the 5% level by **, and at the 1% level by ***.
26
Table 14: European Social Survey - 1
(1)
(2)
Immigrants good for eco
Flanders
4.923***
(0.175)
4.665***
(0.196)
5.611***
(0.199)
Wallonia
Brussles
Flanders vs Wallonia
(3)
(4)
Immigrants create jobs
4.646***
(0.112)
3.994***
(0.146)
4.640***
(0.173)
-0.258***
(0.022)
0.688***
(0.029)
Flanders vs Brussels
Observations
R-squared
Years of survey indicators
3,254
0.798
YES
-0.653***
(0.035)
-0.006
(0.067)
3,254
0.019
YES
1,672
0.835
1,672
0.030
Note. 2002 and 2004 waves are used in column (1) and (2); 2002 wave is used in column (3) and (4). Significance at the 10 %
level is represented by *, at the 5% level by **, and at the 1% level by ***.
Table 15: European Social Survey - 2
Flanders
Wallonia
Brussels
Flanders vs Wallonia
Flanders vs Brussels
(1)
(2)
Allow few Immigrants
from poor countries
(3)
(4)
Cultural life enriched
by immigrants
2.493***
(0.031)
2.401***
(0.034)
2.093***
(0.037)
5.791***
(0.130)
6.043***
(0.149)
7.177***
(0.157)
-0.091***
(0.005)
-0.400***
(0.013)
0.253***
(0.019)
1.387***
(0.028)
(5)
(6)
(7)
(8)
No immigrants friends
No immigrants collegueas
2.498***
(0.040)
2.118***
(0.054)
1.893***
(0.071)
-0.380***
2.392***
(0.024)
2.115***
(0.030)
1.905***
(0.029)
-0.277***
(0.015)
-0.605***
(0.033)
(0.007)
-0.487***
(0.007)
Observations
3,299
3,299
3,263
3,263
1,729
1,729
1,287
1,287
R-squared
0.897
0.021
0.861
0.022
0.924
0.069
0.912
0.040
Years of survey indicators
YES
YES
YES
YES
Note. 2002 and 2004 waves are used in column (1) to (4); 2002 wave is used in column (5) to (8). Significance at the 10 %
level is represented by *, at the 5% level by **, and at the 1% level by ***.
27
Table 16: Internal Migration
(1)
(2)
(3)
(4)
Flanders
Wallonia
Entry share Exit share Entry share
Exit share
Pot_voters*Post
Log of Population
Population Density
Share of Foreigners
Unemployment Rate
Observations
R-squared
Municipalities’ indicators
Years of elections’ indicators
District Time Trend
-0.065
(0.043)
-4.636***
(0.611)
-0.000
(0.000)
0.912
(0.932)
-0.010
(0.024)
-0.032
(0.027)
2.473***
(0.484)
-0.000**
(0.000)
-1.231
(1.063)
0.020
(0.017)
-0.047
(0.040)
-5.744***
(0.676)
0.000
(0.000)
1.994
(1.560)
-0.002
(0.009)
-0.059
(0.036)
0.482
(0.712)
-0.000
(0.000)
-0.093
(1.321)
0.010
(0.010)
7,988
0.870
YES
YES
YES
7,988
0.886
YES
YES
YES
6,794
0.832
YES
YES
YES
6,794
0.842
YES
YES
YES
Note. The dependent variable is the number of individuals entering or exiting a municipality over the total population. Standard
errors clustered at the municipality level are in parentheses. Significance at the 10 % level is represented by *, at the 5% level
by **, and at the 1% level by ***.
Table 17: Naturalization growth rate driven by the ‘Quick Citizenship Act’
Mean (%) Std. Dev. Min. Max. Obs
Belgium
128.8
155.9 -85.7 1000 578
Flanders
Wallonia
Brussels
107.6
155.3
122.1
144.8
170.2
40.2
28
-85.7 750 307
-85.7 1000 252
59.5 239.9 19
Table 18: Effects of the ‘Quick Citizenship Act’ : Flanders
(1)
Nat_change*Post
0.003
(0.005)
Nat_change*1994
Nat_change*2000
Nat_change*2006
Nat_change*2012
Log of Population
Population Density
Share of Foreigners
Share of Foreigners*1994
Share of Foreigners*2000
Share of Foreigners*2006
Share of Foreigners*2012
Unemployment rate
Being Incumbent
Winning Incumbent
Turnout
Observations
R-squared
Municipalities’ indicators
Years of elections’ indicators
District Time Trend
(2)
(3)
Share Pro-imm
-0.000
(0.000)
0.003
(0.006)
0.008
(0.007)
0.002
(0.008)
-0.002
(0.008)
5.969
6.960
(17.797) (17.956)
-0.000
-0.000
(0.001)
(0.001)
-0.091
-0.091
(0.311)
(0.312)
-0.057
-0.070
(0.185)
(0.185)
-0.128
-0.138
(0.189)
(0.189)
-0.004
-0.005
(0.270)
(0.269)
-0.129
-0.125
(0.267)
(0.266)
0.105
0.088
(0.848)
(0.856)
3.687*** 3.664***
(1.063)
(1.069)
2.131*** 2.112***
(0.777)
(0.778)
-0.023
-0.014
(0.091)
(0.093)
1,540
0.808
YES
YES
YES
(4)
(5)
(6)
Probability of mayor very anti-imm
1,540
0.809
YES
YES
YES
-0.000
(0.007)
-0.000
(0.000)
-0.000
(0.007)
-0.000
(0.000)
-0.000
(0.000)
-0.000
(0.000)
-21.737 -0.648*
-0.656*
(30.904) (0.377)
(0.377)
0.006*
0.000
0.000
(0.003) (0.000)
(0.000)
-0.111
-0.001
-0.001
(0.804) (0.007)
(0.007)
-0.113
0.004
0.004
(0.276) (0.003)
(0.003)
-0.213
0.005
0.006
(0.322) (0.005)
(0.005)
0.006
0.006
(0.006)
(0.006)
0.007
0.007
(0.007)
(0.007)
0.437
0.002
0.002
(1.680) (0.015)
(0.015)
-1.006
0.042
0.042
(1.956) (0.084)
(0.084)
2.706** -0.088*** -0.088***
(1.359) (0.020)
(0.020)
1.071*
-0.000
-0.000
(0.635) (0.002)
(0.002)
924
0.877
YES
YES
YES
1,540
0.514
YES
YES
YES
1,540
0.514
YES
YES
YES
-0.000
(0.000)
-0.000
(0.000)
-0.070
(0.619)
-0.000
(0.000)
-0.004
(0.010)
0.004
(0.004)
0.007
(0.007)
-0.007
(0.027)
-0.155
(0.130)
-0.017
(0.020)
0.001
(0.010)
924
0.673
YES
YES
YES
Note. The dependent variable is the share of votes to the pro-immigration parties in column (1) to (3); the probability of having a very antiimmigration mayor in column (4) to (6). In column (3) and (6) only elections in the period 1988-2000 are considered. Standard errors clustered
at the municipality level are in parentheses. Significance at the 10 % level is represented by *, at the 5% level by **, and at the 1% level by ***.
29
Table 19: Effects of the ‘Quick Citizenship Act’ : Wallonia
Nat_change*Post
Nat_change*1994
Nat_change*2000
Nat_change*2006
Nat_change*2012
Log of Population
Population Density
Share of Foreigners
Share of Foreigners*1994
Share of Foreigners*2000
Share of Foreigners*2006
Share of Foreigners*2012
Unemployment rate
Being Incumbent
Winning Incumbent
Turnout
Observations
R-squared
Municipalities’ indicators
Years of elections’ indicators
District Time Trend
(1)
(2)
Very pro-imm Very pro-imm
0.001
(0.004)
0.001
(0.005)
0.002
(0.006)
0.003
(0.007)
-0.003
(0.008)
-7.118
-7.390
(16.798)
(16.819)
0.002
0.002
(0.003)
(0.003)
-0.386
-0.402
(0.398)
(0.396)
-0.190
-0.197
(0.151)
(0.155)
-0.118
-0.126
(0.222)
(0.226)
-0.624
-0.635*
(0.382)
(0.383)
-0.291
-0.286
(0.382)
(0.381)
0.264
0.245
(0.325)
(0.332)
6.113***
6.095***
(2.079)
(2.073)
-0.841
-0.831
(1.090)
(1.091)
-0.025
-0.027
(0.328)
(0.326)
1,262
0.885
YES
YES
YES
1,262
0.886
YES
YES
YES
(3)
Very pro-imm
0.002
(0.005)
0.003
(0.008)
6.541
(22.973)
-0.001
(0.005)
0.323
(0.592)
-0.064
(0.235)
0.052
(0.405)
0.619
(0.592)
5.261**
(2.462)
-0.601
(1.830)
0.143
(0.497)
756
0.939
YES
YES
YES
Note.The dependent variable is the share of votes to the very pro-immigration parties. In column (3) only elections
in the period 1988-2000 are considered.Standard errors clustered at the municipality level are in parentheses. Significance at the 10 % level is represented by *, at the 5% level by **, and at the 1% level by ***.
30
Table 20: Joint effect of immigrants’ enfranchisement and of ‘Quick Citizenship Act’:
Flanders
Pot_voters*1994
Pot_voters*2000
Pot_voters*2006
Pot_voters*2012
Nat_change*Post
Nat_change*1994
Nat_change*2000
Nat_change*2006
Nat_change*2012
Log of Population
Population Density
Share of Foreigners
Share of Foreigners*1994
Share of Foreigners*2000
Share of Foreigners*2006
Share of Foreigners*2012
Unemployment rate
Being Incumbent
Winning Incumbent
Turnout
(1)
(2)
Pro-imm share
-0.624
-0.836
(1.948)
(1.953)
-0.781
-1.153
(1.684)
(1.732)
(3)
(4)
Very anti-imm mayor
0.048
0.053
(0.065)
(0.066)
0.119
0.121
(0.080)
(0.080)
-3.649* -3.665*
0.117*
(2.028)
(2.051)
(0.064)
-4.978** -4.772** 0.217**
(2.427)
(2.414)
(0.098)
0.002
-0.000
(0.005)
(0.000)
0.003
(0.006)
0.007
(0.007)
0.002
(0.008)
-0.001
(0.008)
-2.361
-1.155
-0.291
(18.037) (18.208) (0.406)
0.001
0.001
-0.000
(0.001)
(0.001)
(0.000)
-0.326
-0.326
0.009
(0.351)
(0.354)
(0.009)
-0.030
-0.028
0.001
(0.244)
(0.247)
(0.004)
-0.083
-0.071
-0.001
(0.231)
(0.236)
(0.007)
0.168
0.172
-0.001
(0.262)
(0.262)
(0.008)
0.082
0.083
-0.002
(0.254)
(0.255)
(0.010)
0.110
0.081
0.003
(0.856)
(0.867)
(0.016)
3.607*** 3.580***
0.021
(1.052)
(1.062)
(0.083)
2.092*** 2.073*** -0.087***
(0.769)
(0.771)
(0.021)
-0.019
-0.012
0.000
(0.091)
(0.093)
(0.002)
0.119*
(0.063)
0.219**
(0.099)
-0.000
(0.000)
-0.000
(0.000)
-0.000
(0.000)
-0.000
(0.000)
-0.298
(0.405)
-0.000
(0.000)
0.008
(0.009)
0.001
(0.004)
-0.001
(0.007)
-0.001
(0.008)
-0.002
(0.010)
0.003
(0.016)
0.020
(0.083)
-0.087***
(0.021)
0.000
(0.002)
Observations
R-squared
Municipalities’ indicators
Years of elections’ indicators
District Time Trend
1,540
1,540
1,540
1,540
0.810
0.810
0.522
0.523
YES
YES
YES
YES
YES
YES
YES
YES
YES
YES
YES
YES
Note. The dependent variable is the share of votes to the pro-immigration
parties in column (1) and (2); the probability
31
of having a very anti-immigration mayor in column (3) and (4).Standard errors clustered at the municipality level are
in parentheses. Significance at the 10 % level is represented by *, at the 5% level by **, and at the 1% level by ***.
Table 21: Joint effect of immigrants’ enfranchisement and of ‘Quick Citizenship Act’:
Wallonia
(1)
Pot_voters*1994
Pot_voters*2000
Pot_voters*2006
Pot_voters*2012
Nat_change*Post
Nat_change*1994
Nat_change*2000
Nat_change*2006
Nat_change*2012
Log of Population
(2)
Very pro-imm share
-0.206
(1.836)
1.809
(2.259)
-0.204
(1.838)
1.788
(2.261)
5.985**
(2.456)
5.805**
(2.812)
0.001
(0.005)
5.925**
(2.449)
5.870**
(2.791)
0.001
(0.005)
0.002
(0.006)
0.003
(0.007)
-0.003
(0.008)
-4.191
(16.997)
0.001
(0.003)
0.105
(0.460)
-0.103
(0.238)
-0.115
(0.301)
-0.904**
(0.418)
-0.538
(0.439)
0.250
(0.330)
5.902***
(2.056)
-0.807
(1.105)
-0.064
(0.319)
1,262
0.887
YES
YES
YES
-3.977
(16.973)
Population Density
0.001
(0.003)
Share of Foreigners
0.122
(0.463)
Share of Foreigners*1994
-0.096
(0.233)
Share of Foreigners*2000
-0.109
(0.295)
Share of Foreigners*2006
-0.899**
(0.421)
Share of Foreigners*2012
-0.541
(0.441)
Unemployment rate
0.269
(0.323)
Being Incumbent
5.923***
(2.063)
Winning Incumbent
-0.818
(1.103)
Turnout
-0.065
(0.320)
Observations
1,262
R-squared
0.887
Municipalities’ indicators
YES
Years of elections’ indicators
YES
District Time Trend
YES
Note. The dependent variable is the share of votes32
to the very pro-immigration parties. Standard errors
clustered at the municipality level are in parentheses. Significance at the 10 % level is represented by *,
at the 5% level by **, and at the 1% level by ***.