Immigration is highly salient for voters in Europe and the United States and has
generated considerable academic debate about the causes of preferences over immigration.
This debate centers around the relative influences of sociotropic or
personal economic considerations, as well as non-economic threats. We provide a
test of the competing egocentric, sociotropic, and non-economic paradigms using a
novel constrained preference experiment in which respondents are asked to trade-off
preferred reductions in immigration levels with realistic estimates of the personal
or societal costs associated with those reductions. This survey experiment, performed
on a national sample of British YouGov panelists, allows us to measure the
price-elasticity of the public’s preferences with regard to levels of European and
non-European immigration. Respondents were willing to admit more immigrants
when restriction carries economic costs, with egocentric considerations as important
as sociotropic ones. People who voted for the UK to Leave the European Union
in the 2016 referendum are less price-elastic than those voting Remain, indicating
that non-economic concerns are also important
