. Concern at the economic impact is
one major correlate of hostility to immigrants (Card et al., 2012) and concern that
immigrants take out more from the economy than they put in seems to be a concern of
particular salience. Much attention has been directed, for example, to the effects of
immigration on wages and employment; there is good reason to think that the effect
on public finances is just as politically important and possibly more so. Analysis of
attitudinal data across several European countries, for example, has shown that
economic hostility to immigration is driven by concern about effects on public finances
as much as and probably more than by effects on labour market outcomes (Dustmann
and Preston, 2006, 2007; Boeri, 2010)