Voting from abroad: Assessing the impact of local turnout on migrants’ voting behavior
利用智利海外侨民在欧洲的微观数据，研究发现东道国当地投票率每提高1个百分点，侨民在本国选举中的参与率下降近1个百分点，且融入当地社会越深的侨民受影响越大。
Over 150 countries have laws allowing expatriate citizens to vote in their country of origin. Yet, little is known about their voting behavior and how this is affected by their host countries. Using unique micro-data on Chilean expatriates living in Europe and exploiting increases in the cost of voting caused by rainfall during the 2014 European Parliament election day in districts where Chileans reside, we show that 1 percentage point increase in the host-country local turnout decreases expatriates’ electoral participation in their home-country elections by nearly 1 percentage point. The result is driven by expatriates who were better integrated in the host-country societies. Evidence from surveys shows that higher host turnout promotes expatriates’ participation in host-country organizations and less in home-country organizations. Overall, our results suggest that in communities with high-political participation, migrants engage more with the local politics at the expense of their home-country politics.