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Measuring Immigration Policies: The IMPIC Database

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2026

Marc Helbling,
Liv Bjerre,
Friederike Römer and
Malisa Zobel
Marc Helbling
Affiliation:
University of Bamberg, Kapuzinerstraße 16, Bamberg 96047, GermanyWZB Berlin Social Science Center, Reichpietschufer 50, Berlin 10785, Germany
Liv Bjerre
Affiliation:
WZB Berlin Social Science Center, Reichpietschufer 50, Berlin 10785, Germany
Friederike Römer
Affiliation:
WZB Berlin Social Science Center, Reichpietschufer 50, Berlin 10785, Germany
Malisa Zobel
Affiliation:
Europa University Viadrina, Große Scharrnstraße 59, Frankfurt (Oder) 15230, Germany
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Abstract

Despite a growing interest in migration questions, it is still not possible to systematically analyse immigration policies across time and a large number of countries. Most studies in this field have heretofore focussed on individual cases. Recently, there have been a series of studies that have proposed policy indices that allow for large-N analyses. It appears, however, that these studies have not always adequately addressed the main challenges of index building, that is, conceptualisation, measurement and aggregation. Moreover, they are for the most part limited to individual policy fields or there is a trade-off between the number of countries and years that are covered. The aim of this article is to present the Immigration Policies in Comparison (IMPIC) project, which proposes a new and comprehensive way to measure immigration regulations. The data set covers all major fields and dimensions of immigration policies for thirty-three OECD countries between 1980 and 2010. This article discusses the way immigration policies have been conceptualised, how policies have been measured and aggregated and demonstrates the potential of such a new data set.

Keywords

immigrationpolicymeasurementaggregation

Information

Type
Research
Information
European Political Science , Volume 16 , Issue 1 , March 2017, pp. 79 - 98
Copyright
Copyright © 2016 European Consortium for Political Research

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Footnotes

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Corresponding author.

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