TY  - JOUR
A1  - Sabet, Navid
A1  - Winter, Christoph
T1  - Immigrant legalization and the redistribution of state funds: evidence from the 1986 IRCA
T2  - Journal of Public Economics
N2  - Highlights
• The 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act legalized millions of Hispanic migrants.
• The IRCA receive significantly increases state-to-county fiscal transfers.
• Electoral incentives of the state governor drive the fiscal response of the IRCA.
• Legalization increases Hispanic turnout and political engagement.

Abstract
We study the impact of immigrant legalization on fiscal transfers from state to local governments in the United States, exploiting variation in legal status from the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA). State governments allocate more resources to IRCA counties, an allocation that is responsive to the electoral incentives of the governor. Importantly, the effect emerges prior to the enfranchisement of the IRCA migrants and we argue it is driven by the IRCA’s capacity to politically empower already legal Hispanic migrants in mixed legal status communities. The IRCA increases turnout in large Hispanic communities as well as Hispanic political engagement, without detectably triggering anti-migrant sentiment.
KW  - Distributive politics
KW  - State and local government
KW  - Immigrant legalization
Y1  - 2024
UR  - http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/86103
UR  - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:hebis:30:3-861031
SN  - 0047-2727
VL  - 236
IS  - 105155
PB  - Elsevier
CY  - Amsterdam
ER  -