The Spanish or the German Apartment? Study Abroad and the Acquisition of Permanent Skills

Giuseppe Sorrenti

CHILD Working Papers Series from Centre for Household, Income, Labour and Demographic Economics (CHILD) - CCA

Abstract: In Europe, more than 250; 000 university students spend one or two semesters abroad every year. This work aims to understand whether a short time experience abroad contributes to the acquisition of foreign language proficiency. We use a newly available dataset about almost the totality of Italian graduates and two alternative instruments to address the endogeneity of studying abroad. Both instruments display similar results. The effect of studying abroad on foreign language proficiency is remarkable, although extremely heterogeneous across languages. Languages more rewarded by the labour market are the ones which are harder to learn within a short time experience abroad.

Keywords: Study abroad; permanent individual skills; foreign language proficiency; labour market assets. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 63 pages
Date: 2017
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eur
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (16)

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Journal Article: The Spanish or the German apartment? Study abroad and the acquisition of permanent skills (2017)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cca:wchild:46

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