Workshop on Immigration and Citizenship

Wednesday, May 7, 2014
12:00 AM - 12:00 AM
(Pacific)
Reuben W. Hills Conference Room
Speaker: 
  • David Laitin,
  • Jens Hainmueller,
  • Claire Adida,
  • Dominik Hangartner,
  • Kare Vernby,
  • Yotam Margalit,
  • Francesc Ortega,
  • Thad Dunning,
  • Rafaela Dancygier,
  • Simon Ejdemyr,
  • Simon Hix

Workshop Goals

On the first day, develop a set of research interventions (surveys, experiments, archival searches, participant observations, etc.) that will gain some leverage in measuring differential policies in Europe and their impact on integration, however specified; or in examining the various immigrant populations to measure their differential success in integration, however specified. Each of the participants (either singly or in collaboration) will write up one or two research proposals that lay out the outcomes of interest and the strategy for explaining variation on those outcomes.  Discuss problems and opportunities for each of the submitted proposals and fulfill this first goal.

The second goal of the workshop, and the subject for the second day, to think through three related issues. The first is how to frame the set of proposals in a way that they all fit into a well-defined framework, as if each proposal were a piece of a coherent puzzle. The second is to think through funding sources for this set of interventions that would allow us to conduct the research we proposed and to continue collaborating across these projects. The third is to explore whether there are scholars whose work we know who should be invited to join our group and become part of the grant proposing team.

Wednesday, May 7, 2014 Agenda

I.  Citizenship (discussant Thad) – [9-11AM]

  • Hainmueller/Hangartner – Return on getting citizenship; encouragement design in Switzerland
  • Gest/Hainmueller/Hiscox – Encouragement design on citizenship in US (Chicago)
  • Hainmueller/Laitin – Encouragement design on citizenship in France
  • Alter/Margalit – Immigration and political participation, where immigrants get immediate rights to citizenship (Israel)
  • Dancygier/Vernby – return on citizenship for labor market success (Sweden)

II. Local Context (Rafaela) [11:15-12:15]

  • Adida/Hangartner – RDD on Sudanese refugees in various US cities; experiment with IRC on Iraqi/Chaldian integration in El Cajon

III. Contracts of Integration (Yotam) [1:30-3PM]

  • Hainmueller/Hangartner – Integration Contracts and Naturalization
  • Hainmueller/Laitin – Integration Contracts in France

IV. Discrimination (Jens) [3:30-5PM]

  • Ortega/Polavieja – Immigrants and Job security in Spain and elsewhere in Europe
  • Margalit – Overcoming employer abuse of immigrant workers
  • Dancygier/Vernby – failure of immigrants to get nominated for political office

Thursday, May 8, 2014 Agenda

Discussion on what investments in collective goods might advance this research perspective productively. We might look at favorable granting institutions and how we might combine our memos into a macro proposal; or we might think about building a common research infrastructure (in the way J-PAL has done for experimental development studies). Working towards a jointly authored volume might be another way to aggregate our research projects. All of this discussion depends on the complementarities that emerge from our discussions on Wednesday. David will chair the Thursday discussion.