NATIONAL BUREAU OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH
NATIONAL BUREAU OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH

Globalization and the Returns to Speaking English in South Africa

James Levinsohn

NBER Working Paper No. 10985*
Issued in December 2004
NBER Program(s):   ITI

This paper takes a novel approach to trying to disentangle the impact of globalization on wages by focusing on changes in the return to speaking English, the international language of commerce, in South Africa as that country re-integrated with the global economy after 1993. The paper finds that he return to speaking English increased overall and that within racial groups the return increased primarily for Whites but not for Blacks.

*Published: This paper was subsequently published as Globalization and the Returns to Speaking English in South Africa, James Levinsohn, in NBER book Globalization and Poverty (2007)

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