Economics and English: Language Growth in Economic Perspective

Michael Reksulak (), William F. Shughart () and Robert Tollison ()
Additional contact information
Michael Reksulak: School of Economic Development, Georgia Southern University

Southern Economic Journal, 2004, vol. 71, issue 2, pages 232-259

Abstract: This article examines systematically the growth of the English language from the year 252 ce through 1985. Using a data set collected from the CD-ROM version of the second edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, we characterize the time series of new words added to the language, by year, calculate rates of growth and obsolescence, and disaggregate the data by parts of speech. Economic models of language growth over a modern period (1830–1969) are then estimated. We report evidence that language is a “network” good (the number of new English words is negatively related to population and to gross national product), that additions to the language are retarded by government growth, that the stock of words in use is strongly influenced by foreign trade, and that causality runs from economics to neology but not the reverse. Some suggestive evidence on the relative “efficiency” of English also is presented.

JEL-codes: A12 Z11 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2004

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sej:ancoec:v:71:2:y:2004:p:232-259

Access Statistics for this article

Southern Economic Journal is edited by Laura Razzolini

More articles in Southern Economic Journal from Southern Economic Association
Contact information at EDIRC.
Series data maintained by Laura Razzolini ().