How cultural norms affect attitudes toward immigration

Abstract

We examine how cultural norms shape attitudes toward immigration. Using representative survey data on German university students from the 1990s, we exploit the stark cultural differences between former East and West Germany to study whether moving to a different cultural environment impacts these attitudes. We address the endogeneity of the decision to move by comparing students who moved across the East-West border with those who moved within the former East Germany. We also exploit plausibly exogenous variation in exposure arising from the national allocation mechanism used to place students at universities. Students who moved from the former East to the former West Germany are around 7 percentage points less likely to strongly support limiting immigration than students who moved within the former East Germany.