Full Citation

Title: The bilingual advantage

Citation Type: Working Paper

Publication Year: 2021

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Abstract: This paper tests for the so-called bilingual advantage, the notion that knowing more than one language improves individuals’ other cognitive skills. We use data on children of Latino immigrants in the United States who have been randomly assigned calculation tests in English or Spanish. After controlling for characteristics of children and their parents, we find that bilingual children perform 0.57 standard deviations better than monolingual children, almost equal to learning gains of two additional school years. Applying the Oster test, we find that selection on unobservables would need to be 10 times stronger than selection on observables to explain away our results. Our heterogeneity analysis reveals that the bilingual advantage is particularly strong among boys.

Url: https://www.carloalberto.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/no.645.pdf

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Authors: Fenoll, Ainoa Aparicio; Kuehn, Zoe

Series Title: Carlo Alberto Notebooks

Publication Number: 645

Institution: Collegio Carlo Alberto

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Publisher Location: Turin

Data Collections: IPUMS USA

Topics: Education, Migration and Immigration

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