Suffering and Prejudice: Do negative emotions predict immigration concerns?

Abstract

This paper examines the role of individuals' emotions in determining their concerns about international migration. For the empirical analysis, we construct an index of negative emotions (NE index) from previously less explored information on individuals' self-reported frequency of experiencing anger, fear, and sadness in the German Socio-Economic Panel data. The results indicate that a higher NE index is positively associated with increased immigration concerns. To infer causality, we exploit the exogenous variation in NE index induced by the individual's parent's death and apply fixed effects regressions with instrumental variables. The analysis finds evidence of a positive causal impact of negative emotions for females, but no effects are found among males. The baseline effects for females vary across their social characteristics and personality traits. Finally, we also find that negative emotions determine females' support for far-right political parties but do not affect their left-wing support, implying real-life consequences.