Eliciting individual preferences for immigrants in the Dominican Republic. Results from two choice experiments

Over the last decade, immigration flows among developing countries have grown at a faster pace than immigration to advanced economies. Despite the documented welfare benefits of immigration, adverse policies and negative public opinion toward immigrants appear to be as common in developing countries as in developed ones. In such a context, understanding natives' attitudes toward immigrants may help inform measures to smooth free human mobility. This paper applies choice experiments to elicit individual preferences with regard to immigrants' attributes, the first such application in a developing country. Aligned with previous literature, the results indicate that younger immigrants with greater levels of education, higher-skilled professions, and fluency in the local language are preferred by natives. An interesting result is that foreigners from developed countries tend to receive greater support for admission. Also, there is significant heterogeneity in the estimations that is not explained by observable characteristics of the respondent, suggesting that most heterogeneity is idiosyncratic. Lastly, the experimental designs compare choice settings with a ‘neither’ option versus those with a forced choice, indicating that the former, arguably a more realistic setting, returns a lower probability of admission. •What drives natives' attitudes toward immigrants?•We apply choice experiments to elicit individual preferences with regard to immigrants' attributes.•The results indicate that younger immigrants with greater levels of education, higher-skilled professions, and fluency in the local language are preferred by natives.•Foreigners from developed countries tend to receive greater support for admission. A large share of variability in attitudes seems to be driven idiosyncratic factors.•Proving neither-option in choice experiment returns a lower probability of admission than forced-choice settings.