Do Immigrants Free Ride More Than Natives?

Abstract

Are immigrants a burden on host societies, because they receive benefits from, but do not contribute to, the provision of public goods and services? Questions like these have shaped public debate on immigration policy in the United States and Western Europe, and have fueled a large body of research. In this paper, we investigate theoretically and empirically the implications of immigration for the private provision of public goods. We do not find evidence that immigrants free ride more than the native-born. Moreover, immigrants are less likely to receive assistance from non-government sources compared to similar native-born households.