Who welcomes them? Determinants of the spatial distribution of asylum seekers in Italy

This paper investigates the institutional and socioeconomic determinants of the location of asylum seekers in the case of Italy, where a complex multilevel system of hosting has been established to address the pressure of arrivals. In this system, asylum seekers are allocated to local communities through periodic calls (i.e., with a bottom-up procedure where communities bid for them). This results in an interesting circumstance in which local attitudes can be studied in relation to cultural and political values and economic opportunities. The econometric analysis explores the economic, social and political drivers of such redistribution, finding that social capital is negatively related to the willingness to host asylum seekers, probably due to the desire to maintain cohesive communities.