Out-group penalties in refugee assistance: a survey experiment

We study out-group biases in attitudes toward refugees, and the effect of European Union immigration policies on these views, with a survey experiment including 4,087 Italian respondents. We assess attitudes using donations to a randomly assigned group: Italian victims of violence, or refugees fleeing wars from either Ukraine or African countries. We also employ a novel measure, the share donated in cash, to detect subtler forms of prejudice. Donations were lower for African and Ukrainian refugees than for Italians. African beneficiaries received a small portion of the donation in cash, a behavior that reveals stronger prejudice against distant out-groups and that characterizes mainly individuals with right-leaning political views. Informing about immigration policy reforms had no impact. Textual analysis provides interpretations for these findings.