Citizenship take-up under heterogeneous benefits
Naturalization rates of second-generation immigrants
Effect of the abolition of compulsory conscription on the gender difference in years of schooling among naturalized individuals
The screening effects of naturalization costs
Latest version, with Yajna Govind, R&R at Journal of Public Economics
Abstract
We study how changing citizenship costs affect naturalization decisions and the skill composition of naturalized immigrants. We develop a theoretical framework in which benefits from citizenship are heterogeneous and costs vary with skills. We test its predictions in a quasi-experimental setting, exploiting the abolition of compulsory conscription in France as a reduction in the citizenship costs for sons of immigrants. We find that naturalization costs are higher for the low-educated, such that compulsory conscription induced positive selection on education within benefit groups. It also led to positive selection across benefit groups, which, as shown theoretically, is not guaranteed.