This paper uses two recent UK surveys to investigate labour market performance, the determinants of language proficiency, and the effect of language on earnings and employment probabilities of non-white immigrants. Our results show that language acquisition, employment probabilities, as well as...

We investigate the extent to which deficiency at English as measured by English as Additional Language (EAL), contribute to the immigrant-native wage gap for female employees in the UK, controlling for covariates. To deal with the endogeneity of EAL and a substantial problem of self-selection...

This paper provides a review of the research on the ‘economics of language' as applied to international migration. Its primary focuses are on: (1) the effect of the language skills of an individual on the choice of destination among international (and internal) migrants, both in terms of the...

There is a perception among native born parents in the U.S. that the increasing number of immigrant students in schools creates negative peer effects on their children. In North Carolina there has been a significant increase in immigrants especially those with limited English language skills and...

This paper aims to identify the causal effect of English language skills on education, health and fertility outcomes of immigrants in England and Wales. We construct an instrument for language skills using age at arrival in the United Kingdom, exploiting the fact that young children learn...

Immigrant children in the US tend to perform worse in reading, mathematics, and science compared to native children. This paper explores how much of such differences in achievement can be accounted for by a lack of English proficiency. To identify the causal effect of English proficiency on...

This paper studies whether individuals tend to migrate to countries where their skills are scarce or abundant. Focusing on English language skills, we test whether immigrants who are proficient in English choose to move to countries where many or few individuals speak English. We use the...

This paper studies the causal effect of English proficiency on residential location outcomes and the socioeconomic class of immigrants in England and Wales, exploiting a natural experiment. Based on the phenomenon that young children learn a new language more easily than older children, we...

The use of historical data has become a standard tool in economics, serving three main purposes: to examine the influence of the past on current economic outcomes; to use unique natural experiments to test modern economic theories; and to use modern economic theories to refine our understanding...

France sent five thousand men to fight alongside George Washington's army in the American Revolutionary War. We show that the French combatants' exposure to the United States of America increased support for the French Revolution a decade later. French regions (départements) from which more...