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 used to find efficient allocations of rights in the...

Distributions of language rights in multilingual settings are analyzed from a normative viewpoint in this chapter. If the cost structure of providing rights is concave in the number of beneficiaries, then a critical-mass criterion for the determination of an optimal rights structure results. It...

The following pages are devoted to a bibliography which, though not exhaustive, provides an extensive set of references to several categories of literature in language economics. It consolidates the respective literature lists used by the authors over the years in their research and teaching....

The paper is devoted to an econometric analysis of learning foreign languages in all parts of the world. Our sample covers 193 countries and 13 important languages. Four factors significantly explain learning, two of which affect the broad decision to learn, while two concern as well the choice...

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 "naive" ex ante cost-benefit analysis has to be augmented in various directions....

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...

This paper analyses the effect of the presence of German language learning opportunities abroad on migration to Germany. We use information on the presence of the Goethe-Institut (GI), which is an association that promotes German culture and offers language courses and standardized exams. Our...

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...