Naturalization and Social Capital Investment- Evidence from 32 European Countries

Abstract

In times of increased migration, knowledge about how to best integrate migrants is crucial. In this paper, we investigate whether citizenship can facilitate integra-tion by increasing investment into social capital. The question is of interest as social cohesion and social capital investment are key determinants of economic growth. Us-ing data from the European Social Survey, we investigate the relationship between citizenship and several social capital investment measures with a Linear Probability model, a Two-stage Least Squares and a Bivariate Probit model. For exogenous variation in citizenship, we create an instrument based on variation in whether the country of origin allows their migrants to acquire dual citizenship. The results are mixed. In the naive linear model we find a positive relationship, but the results are not robust to instrumental variable models that deal with selection into citizenship. Policy makers should not put too much faith in potential positive effects of natu-ralization on social integration.