Does immigration decrease far-right popularity? Evidence from Finnish municipalities

Across Europe, far-right parties have made significant electoral gains in recent years. Their anti-immigration stance is considered one of the main factors behind their success. Using data from Finland, this paper studies the effect of immigration on voting for the far-right Finns Party on a local level. Exploiting a convenient setup for a shift-share instrument, I find that one percentage point increase in the share of foreign citizens in municipality decreases Finns Party's vote share by 3.4 percentage points. Placebo tests using pre-period data confirm this effect is not driven by persistent trends at the municipality level. The far-right votes lost to immigration are captured by the two pro-immigration parties. Turning to potential mechanisms, immigration is found to increase voter turnout, potentially activating local pro-immigration voters. Moreover, the negative effect is only present in municipalities with high initial exposure to immigrants, consistent with the intergroup contact theory. Finally, I also provide some evidence for welfarestate channel as a plausible mechanism behind the main result

THREE ESSAYS ON MIGRATION AND ORGANIZED CRIME

This doctoral thesis consists of three independent essays on the economics of international migration and organized crime. Chapter 1 explores the relationship between immigration and voting for the far-right party in Finland. I find that one percentage point increase in the share of foreign citizens in a municipality decreases Finns Party's vote share by 3.4 percentage points. The far-right votes lost to immigration are captured by the two pro-immigration parties. Turning to potential mechanisms, the negative effect is only present in municipalities with high initial exposure to immigrants. Moreover, I provide some evidence for welfare-state channel as a plausible mechanism behind the main result. Chapter 2 studies the public health effects of a recent immigrant regularization program in the United States -- the 2012 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). I find that DACA increased insurance coverage among eligible immigrants. Despite the increase in insurance coverage, there is no evidence of significant increases in health care use, although there is some evidence that DACA increased demand for mental health services. After 2012, DACA-eligible individuals were also more likely to report a usual place of care and less likely to delay care because of financial restrictions. Finally, I find some evidence that DACA improved self-reported health and mental health among eligible individuals. Chapter 3 analyzes the origins and consequences of the Russian Mafia (vory-v-zakone). Using a unique web scraped data, I first show that Russian Mafia originated in the Gulag - Soviet system of forced labor camps which operated in the USSR primarily during the 1920s-1950s Stalin era. Second, I document that the distance to the nearest camp is a strong negative predictor of mafia presence in Russia's communities in the early-to-mid 1990s. Finally, I show that the communities with mafia presence in the 1990s experienced a dramatic rise in crime driven by turf wars which erupted among rival clans around 1993 and lingered on until the late 1990s. This is suggested by a sharp increase in attacks against the members of Russia's economic elite in places with mafia presence

How did the COVID-19 pandemic affect cancer patients in England who had hospital appointments cancelled?

•The paper examines appointment cancellations for English cancer patients during COVID-19.•Pandemic patients waited 19 more days for rescheduled appointments than pre-pandemic.•Pandemic cohort had 14% fewer outpatient, 32% fewer inpatient visits, 50% less hospitalized.•No mortality difference suggests hospitals prioritized acute cases despite fewer resources.•Later cancellations less disruptive; provider-initiated linked to higher survival rates

Trade Networks, Heroin Markets, and the Labor Market Outcomes of Vietnam Veterans

The role of ethnic immigrant networks in facilitating international trade is a well-established phenomenon in the literature. However, it is less clear whether this relationship extends to illegal trade and unauthorized immigrants. In this paper, we tackle this question by focusing on the case of the heroin trade and unauthorized Chinese immigrants in the early 1990s United States. Between mid-1980s and mid-1990s, Southeast Asia became the dominant source of heroin in the US. Heroin from this region was trafficked into the US by Chinese organized criminals, whose presence across the country can be approximated by the location of unauthorized Chinese immigrants. Instrumenting for the unauthorized Chinese immigrant enclaves in 1990 with their 1900 counterpart, we first show that greater presence of unauthorized Chinese immigrants in a community led to a sizeable increase in local opiates-related arrests, a proxy for local heroin markets. This effect is driven by arrests for sale/manufacturing of the drugs. Next, we examine the consequences of Chinese-trafficked heroin by looking at its impact on US Vietnam-era veterans – a group particularly vulnerable to heroin addiction in the early 1990s. Using a triple-difference estimation, we find mostly small but statistically significant detrimental effects on labor market outcomes of Vietnam veterans residing in unauthorized Chinese enclaves in 1990

Gulags, Crime, and Elite Violence: Origins and Consequences of the Russian Mafia

This paper studies the origins and consequences of the Russian mafia (vory-v-zakone). Using a unique web scraped dataset containing detailed biographies of more than 5,000 mafia leaders, I first show that the Russian mafia originated in the Soviet Gulag archipelago, and could be found near the gulags' initial locations in mid-1990s Russia, some three decades after the camps were officially closed down. Then, using an instrumental variable approach that exploits the proximity of the Russian mafia to the gulags, I show that Russian communities with mafia presence in the mid-1990s experienced a dramatic rise in crime driven by elite violence which erupted shortly after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. The violence – initially confined to the criminal underworld – eventually spilled over, leading to indiscriminate attacks against local businessmen, managers of state-owned enterprises, judges, and members of the state security apparatus. However, there was no increase in politically-motivated violence, suggesting a widespread collusion between the mafia and local politicians in the early post-Soviet Russia

Gulags, crime, and elite violence: Origins and consequences of the Russian mafia

This paper studies the origins and consequences of the Russian mafia (vory-v-zakone). I web scraped a unique dataset that contains detailed biographies of more than 5,000 mafia leaders operating in 15 countries of the (former) Soviet Union at some point between 1916 and 2017. Using this data, I first show that the Russian mafia originated in the Gulag - the Soviet system of forced labor camps which housed around 18 million prisoners in the 1920s1950s period. Second, I document that the distance to the nearest camp is a strong negative predictor of mafia presence in Russia's communities in the early post-Soviet period. Finally, using an instrumental variable approach which exploits the spatial distribution of the gulags, I examine the effects of mafia presence on local crime and elite violence in mid-1990s Russia. In particular, I show that the communities with mafia presence experienced a dramatic rise in crime driven by turf wars which erupted among rival clans around 1993 and persisted for much of the 1990s. Further heterogeneity analysis reveals that mafia presence led to a spike in attacks against businessmen, fellow criminals, as well as law enforcement officers and judges, while politically-motivated violence remained unaffected

The Effects of DACA on Health Insurance, Access to Care, and Health Outcomes

This paper studies the effects of the 2012 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) initiative on health insurance coverage, access to care, health care use, and health outcomes. We exploit a difference-in-differences that relies on the discontinuity in program eligibility criteria. We find that DACA increased insurance coverage. In states that granted access to Medicaid, the increase was driven by an increase in public insurance take-up. Where public coverage was not available, DACA eligibility increased individually purchased insurance. Despite the increase in insurance coverage, there is no evidence of significant increases in health care use, although there is some evidence that DACA increased demand for mental health services. After 2012, DACA- eligible individuals were more likely to report a usual place of care and less likely to delay care because of financial restrictions. Finally, we find some evidence that DACA improved self-reported health, and reduced depression symptoms, indicators of stress and anxiety, and hypertension. These improvements are concentrated among individuals with income below the federal poverty level

Highway to Hell? Interstate Highway System and Crime

The United States witnessed an unprecedented crime wave in the second half of the twentieth century, with the total index crime rate more than tripling between 1960-1980. Little is known about the causes of this surge in criminal activity across the country. This paper investigates the role played by the Interstate Highway System (IHS), an ambitious federal government project that led to the construction of over 40,000 miles of highways between 1956-1992. Using a staggered difference-in-differences design and a county-by-year panel dataset spanning all US counties between 1960-1993, we find that a highway opening in a county led to a 5% rise in the local index crime. This effect is driven by property crime (namely larceny and motor vehicle theft), while violent crime remained unaffected. Exploring potential mechanisms, we show that the increase in crime could be explained by the positive effect of IHS on local economic development. At the same time, we find that increases in the local law enforcement size and presence in the affected communities mitigated any substantial crime surge induced by the highway construction

Dreaming of Leaving the Nest? Immigration Status and the Living Arrangements of DACAmented

This study investigates the effects of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) on the living arrangements and housing behavior of undocumented immigrants in the U.S. Using an event-study approach and difference-in-differences (DID) estimates, we compare immigrants above and below eligibility cutoffs and demonstrate that after the adoption of the policy in June 2012, DACA-eligible immigrants were less likely to live with their parents or in multigenerational households (-11%) and more likely to live independently (+15.5%). We also reveal that DACA-eligible immigrants were less likely to live in the same house (+2%) and more likely to move out of ethnic enclaves (-3%). Lower rental costs (-4.5%) may have facilitated this transition into adulthood and the observed trends in living arrangements. DACA also led to a decline in marriage rates among DACA-eligible individuals, while we found no evidence of significant effects on cohabitation, divorce, and intermarriage. We also found no evidence of a clear impact on fertility

Dreaming of leaving the nest? immigration status and the living arrangements of DACAmented

This study investigates the effects of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) on the living arrangements and housing behavior of undocumented immigrants in the U.S. Using an event-study approach and difference-in-differences (DID) estimates, we compared immigrants above and below eligibility cutoffs and demonstrated that, after the adoption of the policy in June 2012, DACA-eligible immigrants were less likely to live with their parents or in multigenerational households (−12.5%) and more likely to live independently (＋15.5%). We also revealed that DACA-eligible immigrants were less likely to live in the same house (−2%) and more likely to quit ethnic enclaves (＋8%). Notably, these patterns are not explained by the known effects of DACA on income and employment outcomes. Lower rental costs (−3%) may have facilitated this transition into adulthood and the observed trends in living arrangements. The DACA also led to a decline in marriage rates among DACA-eligible individuals, although we found no evidence of significant effects on cohabitation, divorce, and intermarriage. We also found no evidence of a clear impact on fertility