[lg policy] English Language Premium: Evidence from a policy experiment in India

[Harold Schiffman]

Research Paper: English Language Premium: Evidence from a policy
experiment in India
Oct 5, 2010
Uncategorized

Shilpi Kapur and  Tanika Chakraborty, Washington University in St Louis

A key question facing education policymakers in many emerging
economies is whether to promote the local language, as opposed to
English, in elementary schools. The dilemma is particularly strong in
countries that underwent rapid globalization, making English a lingua
franca for international as well as domestic exchange. In this paper,
we estimate the change in returns to English skills in response to
globalization by exploiting an exogenous language policy intervention
in the state of West Bengal in India. Our results indicate a
significantly high English skill premium in the labor market in terms
of 2004 wages. A 1% decrease in the probability of learning English
lowers weekly wages by 1.6%. On average, this implies a 68% reduction
in wages due to the language policy change. A closer look into the
channel through which this inequality has grown reveals that
occupational choice played a decisive role in determining the wage
gap.

-- for more click here:
http://www.isid.ac.in/~pu/conference/dec_08_conf/Papers/ShilpiKapur.pdf


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