Chapter 16
The Fiscal Impact of Immigrants
Taxes and Benefits
Carlos Vargas-Silva Senior Researcher, COMPAS, University of Oxford, 58 Banbury Road, Oxford OX2 6QS, UK
Abstract
This chapter provides a comprehensive look at the different ways of estimating the fiscal impact of immigration, discusses the evidence for different countries, and proposes ideas for future research. The evidence regarding the direction of the fiscal impact of immigration (i.e., fiscal burden or blessing) is mixed, but most analysis suggests that the impact is a small share of the fiscal budgets of most host countries. In most cases the estimated impact is less than 1% of GDP. The majority of the analysis has been static (i.e., analysis for a single fiscal year), ...
