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“Bilingual Schooling and Earnings: Evidence from a Language-in-Education reform”

Author

Listed:
  • Lorenzo Cappellari

    (Department of Economics and Finance. Universitá Cattolica Milano)

  • Antonio di Paolo

    (Department of Econometrics. University of Barcelona)

Abstract
We exploit the 1983 language-in-education reform that introduced Catalan alongside Spanish as medium of instruction in Catalan schools to estimate the labour market value of bilingual education. Identification is achieved in a difference-in-differences framework exploiting variation in exposure to the reform across years of schooling and years of birth. We find positive wage returns to bilingual education and no effects on employment, hours of work or occupation. Results are robust to education-cohort specific trends or selection into schooling and are mainly stemming from exposure at compulsory education. We show that the effect worked through increased Catalan proficiency for Spanish speakers and that there were also positive effects for Catalan speakers from families with low education. These findings are consistent with human capital effects rather than with more efficient job search or reduced discrimination. Exploiting the heterogeneous effects of the reform as an instrument for proficiency we find sizeable earnings effects of skills in Catalan.

Suggested Citation

  • Lorenzo Cappellari & Antonio di Paolo, 2015. "“Bilingual Schooling and Earnings: Evidence from a Language-in-Education reform”," AQR Working Papers 201511, University of Barcelona, Regional Quantitative Analysis Group, revised Oct 2015.
    • Handle: RePEc:aqr:wpaper:201511
    as

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    File URL: http://www.ub.edu/irea/working_papers/2015/201523.pdf
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    bilingual education; returns to schooling; language-in-education reform; Catalonia JEL classification: J24; J25; I28.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
    • J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials
    • I28 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Government Policy

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