Working Paper: CEPR ID: DP10640
Authors: Victor Ginsburgh; Shlomo Weber
Abstract: The paper offers an overview of the various approaches to compute linguistic distances (the lexicostatistic method, Levenshtein distances, distances based on language trees, phonetic distances, the ASJP project and distances based on learning scores) as well as distances between groups. It also briefly describes how distances directly affect economic outcomes such as international trade, migrations, language acquisition and earnings, translations. Finally, one can construct indices that take account (or not) of distances and how these indices are used by economists to measure their impact outcomes such as redistribution, the provision of public goods, growth, or corruption.
Keywords: Development; Economic outcomes; Growth; Linguistic disenfranchisement; Linguistic distances
JEL Codes: F6; O21; Z18
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| linguistic distances (Y80) | international trade (F19) |
| linguistic distances (Y80) | trade flows (F10) |
| linguistic distances (Y80) | migration decisions (F22) |
| linguistic distances (Y80) | language acquisition (K37) |
| economic indicators (GDP, literacy rates) (C80) | control for confounding factors (C90) |