Foreign Languages and Trade

Cultural factors and especially common languages are well-known determinants of trade. By contrast, the knowledge of foreign languages was not explored in the literature so far, although communication in non-native languages shapes business relationships. For example, only one third of fluent speakers of English in Europe are living in countries with English as official language. We combine traditional gravity models with data on fluency in the main languages used in EU. We show that widespread knowledge of languages is an important determinant for foreign trade, with English playing an especially important role. The robustness of our results is confirmed by quantile regressions

Projektbeginn: 01.05.2011
Projektende: 31.12.2016

Prof. Dr. Jarko Fidrmuc, Dr. Jan Fidrmuc

Zeppelin University Friedrichshafen
Zeppelin-Lehrstuhl für Internationale Wirtschaftstheorie & -politik (eingerichtet 05 / 2011)

Am Seemooser Horn 20
88045 Friedrichshafen

Telefon: +49 7541 6009-1241
Fax: +49 7541 6009-1299
Email: jarko.fidrmuc@zu.de
http://www.zeppelin-university.de/deutsch/lehrstuehle/internationales_management/internationales_management_profil.php

• eigenfinanziertes Forschungsprojekt

• Fidrmuc, Jarko, Fidrmuc, Jan: Foreign Languages and Trade: Evidence from a Natural Experiment, Empirical Economics, 2016; Jg. 50 (1): 31-49: http://10.1007/s00181-015-0999-7 (download: https://ideas.repec.org/p/ces/ceswps/_4670.html) .