Immigration Policy with Partisan Parties

Abstract

This paper analyzes the political economy of immigration when the salient electoral issue is the level of immigrants and the relevant immigration policy is the expenditure in immigration control. We consider that immigration affects voters' welfare through economic and non economic factors. We model political competition à la Wittman with the ideology of parties endogenously determined at equilibrium. Numerical simulations provide the levels of immigration proposed by the two parties and the composition of parties' constituencies. At equilibrium, parties propose different levels of immigration, located to the left and to the right of the median voter's ideal point. We find that improvements in the efficacy of immigration control increases the probability of victory of the party proposing a tighter immigration policy and decreases the disparity in parties' policy proposals.