Returns to Foreign Language Skills in a Developing Country: The Case of Turkey |
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Authors: | Antonio Di Paolo Aysit Tansel |
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Affiliation: | 1. AQR-IREA, Department of Econometrics, University of Barcelona, 08034, Barcelona, Spain;2. Department of Economics, Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey;3. Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), Bonn, Germany;4. Economic Research Forum (ERF), Cairo, Egypt |
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Abstract: | This paper analyses the economic value of foreign languages in Turkey using data on some 6000 adult male wage-earners in 2007. We find positive earnings returns to proficiency in English and Russian, which increase with the level of competence. French and German skills are also positively rewarded, although their return seems mostly linked to the likelihood to hold specific occupations. In contrast, knowing Arabic does not generate an earnings premium. Focusing on English, we check for heterogeneous returns along the conditional earnings distribution. The results are qualitatively invariant when we account for misclassification errors in self-reported English skills. |
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