Working Paper: NBER ID: w12464
Authors: Kevin Lang; Erez Siniver
Abstract: We use a unique sample of Russian immigrants and natives in Israel to examine the return to English knowledge. In cross-section estimates there is a significant return to English knowledge for both immigrants and natives with high levels of education. Language acquisition is an important element in immigrant/native earnings convergence, but most of this convergence is explained by factors other than language acquisition. These results are confirmed using panel data on wages and knowledge of Hebrew and English over time. The benefits of English knowledge vary across occupations in ways that are largely consistent with past evidence on language-skill complementarity. Natives and immigrants with high levels of education benefit similarly from knowing English. While immigrants with low levels of education do not benefit from knowledge of English, there is some evidence that native Israelis do. Conditional on occupation, the rate at which immigrants learn English and Hebrew are largely orthogonal. Therefore earlier work on the importance of knowledge of the host-country language (Hebrew) does not appear to be significantly biased by the absence of measures of English knowledge.
Keywords: English knowledge; Russian immigrants; Natives; Israel; Language acquisition; Earnings convergence
JEL Codes: J15; J24; Z13
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| English knowledge (G53) | wages (J31) |
| language acquisition (K37) | immigrant-native earnings convergence (J69) |
| knowledge of Hebrew and English (A39) | wage growth (J31) |
| English knowledge (G53) | wage growth (J31) |
| English knowledge (high education immigrants) (I25) | wages (J31) |
| English knowledge (low education immigrants) (I24) | wages (J31) |
| rate of learning English and Hebrew (A29) | earlier studies on Hebrew knowledge bias (I00) |