Why do people learn foreign languages ?

Victor Ginsburgh, Ignacio Ortuno-Ortin and Shlomo Weber ()
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Ignacio Ortuno Ortin

No 2004079, LIDAM Discussion Papers CORE from Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE)

Abstract: We suggest a demand model for foreign languages and estimate demand functions for English, French, German and Spanish in 13 European countries. We show that three variables explain reasonably well the share of people who learn a foreign language: the larger the native population in the country, the less its citizens are prone to learn another language; the more the foreign language is spoken, the more it attracts others to learn it; the larger the distance between two languages, the smaller the proportion of people who will learn it.

Date: 2004-11
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cor:louvco:2004079

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