Information Shocks, Attitudes toward Immigrants, and Hate Crime

802/2026 Jake Bradley, Facundo Albornoz, Silvia Sonderegger, Jesús Rodríguez, Devesh Rustagi

There are concerns over the rise in populism and hate crimes targeting minorities in democracies. We examine whether national information shocks triggered by political events play a role. Focusing on two UK events that revealed nationwide anti-immigrant sentiment, we document counterintuitive results: large persistent surges in hate crimes in the post-event periods in areas with pro-immigrant, rather than anti-immigrant, attitudes. We show that the xenophobic minority residing in pro-immigrant areas experience stronger belief shocks from these events, inducing them to update their beliefs about social acceptability of hate. Our findings high light how heterogeneous priors interact with national events to amplify xenophobic behaviour.

Designing and Building Institutions