Weiguo Zhang
Shandong University, China
I am excited and honored to be a part of this innovative project. I hope that policymakers and academics alike will find World of Labor a useful way to quickly learn the latest state of research on a wide range of issues in labor policy
IZA World of Labor role
Author
Current position
Professor of Economics, Center for Economic Research, Shandong University, China
Research interest
Language, labor, education, and development
Qualifications
PhD Economics, Shandong University, 2008
Selected publications
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Towards an Economic Approach to Language: An Elementary Framework. Beijing: China Social Sciences Press, 2016 (in Chinese).
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"English listening, speaking, and earnings among workers in urban China." Education Economics 28:2 (2020) 211–223 (with D. Lien).
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"How can language be linked to economics?: A survey of two strands of research." Language Problems and Language Planning 37:3 (2013): 203–226 (with G. Grenier).
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"Language as human capital, public good and institution." Economic Research Journal 43:2 (2008): 144–154 (in Chinese).
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The value of language skills Updated
A common language facilitates communication and economic efficiency, but linguistic diversity has economic and cultural value too
Gilles GrenierWeiguo Zhang, March 2021In today's globalized world, people are increasingly mobile and often need to communicate across different languages. Learning a new language is an investment in human capital. Migrants must learn the language of their destination country, but even non-migrants must often learn other languages if their work involves communicating with foreigners. Economic studies have shown that fluency in a dominant language is important to economic success and increases economic efficiency. However, maintaining linguistic diversity also has value since language is also an expression of people's culture.MoreLess