The value of language skills

Gilles Grenier

IZA World of Labor, 2015, No 205, 205

Abstract: In today’s globalized world, people are increasingly mobile and often need to communicate across different languages. Learning a new language is an investment in human capital. Migrants must learn the language of their destination country, but even non-migrants must often learn other languages if their work involves communicating with foreigners. Economic studies have shown that fluency in a dominant language is important to economic success and increases economic efficiency. However, maintaining linguistic diversity also has value since language is also an expression of people’s culture.

Keywords: language; human capital; immigration; lingua franca; English; linguistic diversity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H41 J15 J18 J26 J61 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
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Journal Article: The value of language skills (2021)
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