Tabellini, Marco Emanuele2018-08-012018-08-01Tabellini, Marco. "Gifts of the Immigrants, Woes of the Natives: Lessons from the Age of Mass Migration." Review of Economic Studies 87, no. 1 (January 2020): 454–486. (Was Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 19-005, July 2018.)http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:37326940In this paper, I show that political opposition to immigration can arise even when immigrants bring significant economic prosperity to receiving areas. I exploit exogenous variation in European immigration to US cities between 1910 and 1930 induced by World War I and the Immigration Acts of the 1920s, and instrument immigrants’ location decision relying on pre-existing settlement patterns. Immigration increased natives’ employment and occupational standing, and fostered industrial production and capital utilization. However, despite these economic benefits, it triggered hostile political reactions, such as the election of more conservative legislators, higher support for anti-immigration legislation, and lower public goods provision. Stitching the economic and the political results together, I provide evidence that natives’ backlash was, at least in part, due to cultural differences between immigrants and natives, suggesting that diversity might be economically beneficial but politically hard to manage.en-USResearch Paper or Report2018-08-01