Distributions of language rights in multilingual settings are analyzed from a normative viewpoint in this chapter. If …-benefit calculation has to be augmented in various ways if rights influence the status of a language, which in turn influences the … preferences for language rights. Also the inter-generational transfer of language repertoires to the next generation leads to an …

We analyze various normatively determined distributions of language rights in multilingual settings. A general model … for the analysis of language rights over time in a model with overlapping generations is set up. This model is then first … the status of a language in the future, the “naïve” static analysis has to be augmented in favor of further …

This paper investigates the economic returns to language skills and bilingualism. The analysis is staged in Kazakhstan …, a multi-ethnic country with complex ethnic settlement patterns that has switched its official state language from … bilingualism on earnings while Russian was the official state language in the 1990s. Surprisingly, the Kazakh language continues to …

The essay gives an overview of how language planning and language policy can be motivated and analyzed by economic … methods. It is discussed what type of value language-related goods possess and what type of goods they are. Properties like … degrees of rivalry, exclusion, and shielding and how they can justify language planning are treated. A cots-benefit approach …

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 …

We analyze normatively determined distributions of language rights in multilingual settings. It is shown in a welfare …-maximizing model where rights today influence the status of a language in the future, that the “naïve” ex ante cost-benefit analysis …

decision to learn, while two concern as well the choice of the particular language to learn. Literacy generally promotes … learning while the world population of speakers of the native language generally discourages it. Trade with speakers of a … specific language prompts learning of that specific language while the linguistic distance between the home and the foreign …

natural experiment of trade between Eastern and Western Europe …

We build a model of secession crises where voters may wish to accommodate the minority to prevent secession. We show … the existence of a majority voting equilibrium with a government's type biased in favor of the minority. We propose a … factors, the relative size of the minority region, the probability that a secession attempt is successful, and the intra …

We show that a transfer targeting a minority of the population is sustained by majority voting, however small the … minority targeted, when the probability to receive the transfer is decreasing and concave in income. We apply our framework to …