10.7910/DVN/XGVQDT Hangartner, Dominik Dominik Hangartner London School of Economics Dinas, Elias Elias Dinas EUI Marbach, Moritz Moritz Marbach ETH Zurich Matakos, Konstantinos Konstantinos Matakos King's College London Xefteris, Dimitiros Dimitiros Xefteris University of Cyprus Harvard Dataverse 2018 Social Sciences Immigration Hangartner, Dominik Dominik Hangartner London School of Economics Marbach, Moritz Moritz Marbach ETH Zurich 2018-11-01 2018-11-01 10.7910/DVN/XGVQDT/OJ2XZJ 8405339 application/x-gzip 1.0 Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication. Although Europe has experienced unprecedented numbers of refugee arrivals in recent years, there exists almost no causal evidence regarding the impact of the refugee crisis on natives' attitudes, policy preferences, and political engagement. We exploit a natural experiment in the Aegean Sea, where Greek islands close to the Turkish coast experienced a sudden and massive increase in refugee arrivals while similar islands slightly farther away did not. Leveraging a targeted survey of 2,070 islands residents and distance to Turkey as an instrument, we find that direct exposure to refugee arrivals induces sizeable and lasting increases in natives' hostility toward refugee, immigrant and Muslim minorities; support for restrictive asylum and immigration policies; and political engagement to effect such exclusionary policies. Since refugees only passed through these islands, our findings challenge both standard economic and cultural explanations of anti-immigrant sentiment, and show that mere exposure suffices in generating lasting increases in hostility.