Talking Trade: Language Barriers in Intra-Canadian Commerce

Nicolas Sauter ()

No 23, FIW Working Paper series from FIW

Abstract: This paper tests for one mechanism that can explain the existence of a language barrier to trade. Specifically, I ask if those industries that require more cross-border communication in order to export their products trade more between Canadian provinces that know the other's language(s). I find that trade in industries with a need to communicate directly (orally) with importers increases with the probability that people in another province speak the same language. This finding can fill a missing link in the empirical trade literature, which lacked convincing arguments for the observed correlation between language commonality and the total volume of trade.

Keywords: Language; Trade cost; Gravity model; Canada (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F10 F15 F40 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 31
Date: 2009-01
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Talking trade: language barriers in intra-Canadian commerce (2012)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wsr:wpaper:y:2009:i:023

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