Foreign Languages and Trade: Evidence from a Natural Experiment

Wirtschaftswissenschaften

Fidrmuc, Jarko, Fidrmuc, Jan

Foreign Languages and Trade: Evidence from a Natural Experiment

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) .

Originalarbeiten in wissenschaftlichen Fachzeitschriften mit Review-Verfahren

Cultural factors and common languages are well-known determinants of trade. By contrast, the knowledge of foreign languages was not explored in the literature so far. We combine traditional gravity models with data on fluency in the main languages used in EU and candidate countries. 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.

http://10.1007/s00181-015-0999-7