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Compensation schemes for learning a Lingua Franca in the European Union
Author(s) -
Ginsburgh Victor,
MorenoTernero Juan D.
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
the world economy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.594
H-Index - 68
eISSN - 1467-9701
pISSN - 0378-5920
DOI - 10.1111/twec.12644
Subject(s) - german , lingua franca , compensation (psychology) , talmud , incentive , european union , process (computing) , linguistics , computer science , economics , political science , microeconomics , international economics , psychology , social psychology , philosophy , theology , judaism , operating system
We discuss compensation schemes that should give incentives to EU countries and citizens to acquire a lingua franca . We consider three possible candidate languages: English, French and German, which are already the most widely spoken languages. In our model, countries can claim compensations linked to the number of (young) citizens who do not speak a given candidate language, and the distance between the official language in the country and the suggested lingua franca . We study two sharing schemes that are rooted in ancient sources: the Aristotelian proportional rule and the Talmud rule. The former prevents coalitional manipulations among countries, whereas the latter guarantees meaningful lower bounds in the sharing process for all countries.