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On The Pro-Trade Effects Of Immigrants, Massimiliano Bratti, Luca De Benedictis, Gianluca Santoni

Luca De Benedictis

This paper investigates the causal effect of immigration on trade flows using Italian panel data at the province level. We exploit the exceptional characteristics of the Italian data (the fine geographical disaggregation, the very high number of countries of origin of immigrants, the high heterogeneity of social and economic characteristics of Italian provinces, and the absence of cultural or historical ties) coupled with the use of a wide set of fixed effects and an `instrument' based on immigrants' enclaves. We find that immigrants have a significant positive effect on both exports and imports, but much larger for the latter. The …