The paper is devoted to an econometric analysis of learning foreign languages in all parts of the world. Our sample … learning while the world population of speakers of the native language generally discourages it. Trade with speakers of a … covers 193 countries and 13 important languages. Four factors significantly explain learning, two of which affect the broad …

Learning profiles, that track changes in student skills per year of schooling, often find shockingly low learning gains … instruction with no progress on basics. We argue shallow learning profiles are in part the result of curricular paces moving much … faster than the pace of learning. To demonstrate the consequences of a gap between the curriculum and student mastery, we …

This article investigates the macro-level drivers of adult-age language learning. We construct a new dataset that … covers German language learning in 77 countries (including Germany) for 1992-2006. Fixed-effects regressions show that … language learning in the EU is strongly associated with immigration. Instead, immigration by non-EU citizens in associated with …

learning, and even idiosyncratic variation. Our paper cautions that the slider task will be underpowered for uncovering a …