Volume: 4  Number: 4  Page: 262–281  doi:10.2167/ijm075.0

The Valuation of Plurilingual Competences in an Open European Labour Market

Carlo Klein Centre d'Etudes de Population, de Pauvreté et de Politiques socio-économiques (CEPS/INSTEAD), Differdange, Luxembourg

We present a model allowing the measurement of the returns to plurilingual competences in a small open economy, considered as a reduced model of an open European labour market where different nationalities work together and therefore need to communicate either in one or in multiple languages. Our results suggest that high plurilingual competences have a positive impact on the probability to be active in the labour market for men as well as for women and the same competences also have an impact on wages, at least for men. But if we now consider the individual languages, the English language seems to be the most important, as it is the only language having an influence both on the participation rate and on the return of language competences in the labour market.

Keywords: open European labour market, panel data, returns to language competences

© 2007 C. Klein

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