TY - JOUR
T1 - Language skills and earnings
T2 - Evidence from a pre-industrial economy in the Bolivian Amazon
AU - Godoy, Ricardo
AU - Reyes-García, Victoria
AU - Seyfried, Craig
AU - Huanca, Tomás
AU - Leonard, William R.
AU - McDade, Thomas
AU - Tanner, Susan
AU - Vadez, Vincent
N1 - Funding Information:
Research was funded by Grants from the programs of Biological and Cultural Anthropology of the National Science Foundation (0134225, 0200767, and 0322380). Thanks go to Lilian Apaza, Esther Conde, Johnny Dávila, Homero Rivas, Yerko Lobo, Lourdes Parada, Bernabé Nate, Paulino Pache, Evaristo Tayo, Santiago Cari, José Cari, Manuel Roca, Daniel Pache, Javier Pache, and Vicente Cuata for help collecting the information and for logistical support. Thanks go to Russ Bernard, John Robst, and an anonymous reviewer for commenting on an earlier version of the paper.
PY - 2007/6
Y1 - 2007/6
N2 - Among linguistic minorities of industrial nations proficiency speaking the dominant national language increases earnings and wages, but do similar results apply to autarkic linguistic minorities of developing nations? We contribute to studies of the returns to language skills by applying the human-capital approach to a society of hunters, gatherers, and farmers in the Bolivian Amazon (Tsimane'). We use a panel consisting of five consecutive quarters to: (a) estimate the returns to language skills while controlling for schooling, math and writing skills, and other confounders and (b) explore the paths through which language skills might affect earnings. Fluent speakers of Spanish and the local language earned 36.9-46.9% more than monolingual speakers of the local language. Moderate fluency in Spanish bore no strong association with earnings. Spanish-Tsimane' bilingualism bore a positive association with earnings partly because bilingualism bore a positive association with credit access, use of modern production technologies, and labor productivity.
AB - Among linguistic minorities of industrial nations proficiency speaking the dominant national language increases earnings and wages, but do similar results apply to autarkic linguistic minorities of developing nations? We contribute to studies of the returns to language skills by applying the human-capital approach to a society of hunters, gatherers, and farmers in the Bolivian Amazon (Tsimane'). We use a panel consisting of five consecutive quarters to: (a) estimate the returns to language skills while controlling for schooling, math and writing skills, and other confounders and (b) explore the paths through which language skills might affect earnings. Fluent speakers of Spanish and the local language earned 36.9-46.9% more than monolingual speakers of the local language. Moderate fluency in Spanish bore no strong association with earnings. Spanish-Tsimane' bilingualism bore a positive association with earnings partly because bilingualism bore a positive association with credit access, use of modern production technologies, and labor productivity.
KW - Economic development: Human capital
KW - Economic impact
KW - Rate of return
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U2 - 10.1016/j.econedurev.2005.12.001
DO - 10.1016/j.econedurev.2005.12.001
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:34248189687
VL - 26
SP - 349
EP - 360
JO - Economics of Education Review
JF - Economics of Education Review
SN - 0272-7757
IS - 3
ER -
