Fear and the Safety Net: Evidence from Secure Communities
研究了美国安全社区移民执法计划如何导致西班牙裔公民家庭减少参与联邦安全网项目，主要通过网络效应传播恐惧而非污名或信息缺乏。
Abstract We study the effects of Secure Communities, an immigration enforcement program that dramatically increased interior removals of Hispanic noncitizens from the United States, on participation in means-tested social insurance programs among co-ethnic citizens. Exploiting county-level variation in the roll-out of enforcement together with its ethnic specificity, we find that Hispanic-headed citizen households significantly reduced their participation in two large federal safety net programs. Our results are most consistent with network effects that propagate fear through minority communities rather than stigma or lack of benefit information.