In this paper we argue that different preferences in a decentralized system lead to under provision of public goods. We analyze the provision of public primary education in nineteenth-century Prussia which was characterized by a linguistically polarized society and a decentralized education...

Bis dato gibt es nur wenige Arbeitnehmer in Deutschland, die aus dem Ausland stammen: Über die Hälfte der Befragten gaben in der Akademie-Studie 2015 an, höchstens ein paar Mitarbeiter oder Kollegen zu haben, auf die dies zutrifft. Bei fast 40 Prozent ist es bei keinem einzigen der Fall....

The paper is devoted to an econometric analysis of learning foreign languages in all parts of the world. Our sample covers 193 countries and 13 important languages. Four factors significantly explain learning, two of which affect the broad decision to learn, while two concern as well the choice...

Using a repeated cross-section of more than 258,000 residents of 39 European countries covering the period from 1990 to 2012, I study the impact of knowing different foreign languages on income and (for the first time) on unemployment. To help identify causal effects, I also employ a novel...

Constructing advertising directed at multilingual audiences -- Language effects on multilingual speakers -- Studying multilingualism in advertising: Starting from lived experiences and linguistic repertoires -- Linguistic resources in advertising and their impact on multilinguals --...

This paper analyses the wage premia associated with workers' occupational use of foreign languages in Germany. After eliminating time-invariant unobserved heterogeneity and other confounding factors, sizable returns of about 10 percent to applying fluent English skills are found. Returns to...

Diese Studie dient der Identifizierung von kausalen Effekten von Sprachkenntnissen in Fremdsprachen und der Gastlandssprache von Immigranten in Spanien. Um Endogenitätsprobleme und Meßfehlerproblematiken zu beheben, setzt die Analyse auf einen Instrumentvariablenschätzer. Die verwendeten...

Diese Studie befasst sich mit der Quantifizierung von Nachteilen im Spracherwerb von Immigranten, die auf die linguistische Distanz zwischen Muttersprache und Sprache des Gastlandes zurückzuführen sind. Als Datenbasis dient die International Adult Literacy Study, welche mit linguistischer...

This paper analyses the wage premia associated with workers' occupational use of foreign languages in Germany. After eliminating time-invariant unobserved heterogeneity and other confounding factors, sizable returns of about 10 percent to applying fluent English skills are found. Returns to...

This paper analyses the wage premia associated with workers' occupational use of foreign languages in Germany. After eliminating time-invariant unobserved heterogeneity and other confounding factors, sizable returns of about 10 percent to applying fluent English skills are found. Returns to...

This paper analyzes the wage premia associated with workers' occupational use of foreign languages in Germany. After eliminating time-invariant unobserved heterogeneity and other confounding factors, sizable returns of about 0.12 log points to applying fluent English skills are found in the...

We focus on the effect of English deficiency on the native-immigrant wage gap for employees in the UK using the first wave of the UK Household Longitudinal Survey (Understanding Society). We show that the wage gap is robust to controls for age, region of residence, educational attainment and...

This article uses micro-data from the Spanish National Immigrant Survey to investigate the impact of Spanish language proficiency on immigrants' earnings. The results, based on Instrumental Variables (IV), point to a substantial earnings return to Spanish proficiency, of approximately 27%. This...

Compared to other immigrants to the United States, recent Jewish immigrants from the former Soviet Union have achieved high levels of English language proficiency and earnings. They experience disadvantages in both dimensions at arrival, but because of steeper improvements with duration in the...

This paper uses data from the 2010 American Community Survey (ACS) to study the returns to language skills of child and adult migrants in the US labor market. We employ an instrumental variable strategy, which exploits differences in language acquisition profiles between immigrants from English-...

Dieses Papier verwendet Daten des American Community Survey (ACS), um die Renditen von Sprachfähigkeiten von Einwanderern, die entweder als Kinder oder als Erwachsene in die USA eingewandert sind, zu schätzen. Wir verwenden Instrumentenvariablen, welche Unterschiede in Spracherwerbsprofilen...

Previous studies of immigrant populations suggest that ceteris paribus (after controlling for the number of years in the receiving country and other socio-demographic variables), the level of income is strongly and positively correlated with fluency in the local language. Based on a phone survey...