The Effect of Immigration on the School Performance of Natives: Cross Country Evidence using PISA Test Scores

We use aggregate PISA data for 19 countries over the period 2000 to 2009 to study whether a higher share of immigrant pupils affects the school performance of natives. We find evidence of a negative and statistically significant relationship. The size of the estimated effect is small: doubling the share of immigrant pupils in secondary schools from its current sample average of 4.2 percent to 8.4 percent would reduce the test score of natives by 1 to 3.4 percent, depending on the selected group of natives. There is also evidence that – conditional on the average share of immigrant pupils - reducing the dispersion of this share between schools has small positive effects on the test scores of natives. Whether these findings can be generalized to a larger sample of countries is an open question that we leave to future esearch.