Barrera al comercio: el idioma

Esta es una carta el director publicada en The Economist (vía Trade Diversion). En el segundo párrafo nos dicen lo que pasaría con el comercio si en Europa habláramos mejor el inglés. No sé qué fiabilidad tienen los resultados, pero resulta evidente que nuestro nivel de inglés es, comparativamente, de los peores en la UE. ¿Qué pruebas tengo? Todos los años cuando regresan a Pamplona nuestros estudiantes Erasmus me hablan de la vergüenza que pasan comprobando que nuestro nivel de inglés es el peor de todos los países, y se comparan con los que han sido sus compañeros. Algunos me dice que también los italianos hablan mal. Año tras año se repite esta regularidad.

SIR – Charlemagne lamented the fact that English has arisen as the main language that Europeans choose to learn while Anglophones remain monolingual (February 14th). In his gloominess, Charlemagne missed an important point: the linguistic unification of Europe can yield economic returns in addition to the cultural and social ones enjoyed by those of us who speak English, whether or not it is our first language.

In a recent paper, we found that bilateral trade between European countries depends positively on the probability that two randomly chosen individuals, one from each country, would be able to communicate with each other in English. We predicted that if knowledge of English in all European countries increased by ten percentage points, European trade would rise by up to 15% on average. Bringing all European countries up to the level of English proficiency enjoyed by the Dutch could increase European trade by up to 70%.

This comes close to the gains reckoned to accrue from adopting the euro. But unlike joining the euro and having to give up your currency, you need not give up your own language to use English. Our analysis does not hinge on English enjoying official-language status across Europe, only that Europeans are able to speak it well.

Jan Fidrmuc
Senior lecturer in economics
Brunel University
London

Jarko Fidrmuc
Professor of political economy
University of Munich
Munich