IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jeborg/v158y2019icp487-499.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

TV or not TV? The impact of subtitling on English skills

Author

Listed:
  • Rupérez Micola, Augusto
  • Aparicio Fenoll, Ainoa
  • Banal-Estañol, Albert
  • Bris, Arturo

Abstract

We study the influence of television translation techniques on the worldwide distribution of English-speaking skills. We identify a large positive effect for subtitled original version broadcasts, as opposed to dubbed television, on English proficiency scores. We analyze the historical circumstances under which countries opted for one of the translation modes and use it to account for the possible endogeneity of the subtitling indicator. We disaggregate the results by type of skills and find that television works especially well for listening comprehension. Our paper suggests that governments could promote subtitling as a means to improve foreign language proficiency.

Suggested Citation

  • Rupérez Micola, Augusto & Aparicio Fenoll, Ainoa & Banal-Estañol, Albert & Bris, Arturo, 2019. "TV or not TV? The impact of subtitling on English skills," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 158(C), pages 487-499.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jeborg:v:158:y:2019:i:c:p:487-499
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2018.12.019
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167268118303494
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jebo.2018.12.019?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Melitz, Jacques & Toubal, Farid, 2014. "Native language, spoken language, translation and trade," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(2), pages 351-363.
    2. McManus, Walter S, 1985. "Labor Market Costs of Language Disparity: An Interpretation of Hispanic Earnings Differences," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 75(4), pages 818-827, September.
    3. Matthew A. Gentzkow & Jesse M. Shapiro, 2004. "Media, Education and Anti-Americanism in the Muslim World," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 18(3), pages 117-133, Summer.
    4. James Levinsohn, 2007. "Globalization and the Returns to Speaking English in South Africa," NBER Chapters, in: Globalization and Poverty, pages 629-646, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Jan Fidrmuc & Jarko Fidrmuc, 2009. "Foreign Languages and Trade," CEDI Discussion Paper Series 09-03, Centre for Economic Development and Institutions(CEDI), Brunel University.
    6. Mayer, Thierry & Zignago, Soledad, 2006. "Notes on CEPII’s distances measures," MPRA Paper 26469, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Ran Abramitzky & Isabelle Sin, 2014. "Book Translations As Idea Flows: The Effects Of The Collapse Of Communism On The Diffusion Of Knowledge," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 12(6), pages 1453-1520, December.
    8. Albert Saiz & Elena Zoido, 2005. "Listening to What the World Says: Bilingualism and Earnings in the United States," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 87(3), pages 523-538, August.
    9. Hoyt Bleakley & Aimee Chin, 2004. "Language Skills and Earnings: Evidence from Childhood Immigrants," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 86(2), pages 481-496, May.
    10. Eliana La Ferrara & Alberto Chong & Suzanne Duryea, 2012. "Soap Operas and Fertility: Evidence from Brazil," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 4(4), pages 1-31, October.
    11. McManus, Walter & Gould, William & Welch, Finis, 1983. "Earnings of Hispanic Men: The Role of English Language Proficiency," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 1(2), pages 101-130, April.
    12. Stefano DellaVigna & Ethan Kaplan, 2007. "The Fox News Effect: Media Bias and Voting," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 122(3), pages 1187-1234.
    13. Jeffrey Frankel & Andrew Rose, 2002. "An Estimate of the Effect of Common Currencies on Trade and Income," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 117(2), pages 437-466.
    14. James E. Anderson & Eric van Wincoop, 2003. "Gravity with Gravitas: A Solution to the Border Puzzle," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(1), pages 170-192, March.
    15. M. Keith Chen, 2013. "The Effect of Language on Economic Behavior: Evidence from Savings Rates, Health Behaviors, and Retirement Assets," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(2), pages 690-731, April.
    16. Marco Pagano & Ailsa A. Röell & Josef Zechner, 2002. "The Geography of Equity Listing: Why Do Companies List Abroad?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 57(6), pages 2651-2694, December.
    17. Fearon, James D, 2003. "Ethnic and Cultural Diversity by Country," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 8(2), pages 195-222, June.
    18. Ku, Hyejin & Zussman, Asaf, 2010. "Lingua franca: The role of English in international trade," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 75(2), pages 250-260, August.
    19. Peter H. Egger & Andrea Lassmann, 2015. "The Causal Impact of Common Native Language on International Trade: Evidence from a Spatial Regression Discontinuity Design," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 0(584), pages 699-745, May.
    20. Benjamin A. Olken, 2009. "Do Television and Radio Destroy Social Capital? Evidence from Indonesian Villages," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 1(4), pages 1-33, October.
    21. Andrews,Donald W. K. & Stock,James H. (ed.), 2005. "Identification and Inference for Econometric Models," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521844413.
    22. Thomas Eisensee & David Strömberg, 2007. "News Droughts, News Floods, and U. S. Disaster Relief," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 122(2), pages 693-728.
    23. Matthew Gentzkow & Jesse M. Shapiro, 2008. "Preschool Television Viewing and Adolescent Test Scores: Historical Evidence from the Coleman Study," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 123(1), pages 279-323.
    24. Aparicio Fenoll, Ainoa & Kuehn, Zoë, 2014. "Does Foreign Language Proficiency Foster Migration of Young Individuals within the European Union?," IZA Discussion Papers 8250, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    25. Benjamin Bridgman, 2013. "Export Mode and Market Entry Costs," BEA Working Papers 0089, Bureau of Economic Analysis.
    26. Eliana La Ferrara & Alberto Chong & Suzanne Duryea, 2012. "Soap Operas and Fertility: Evidence from Brazil," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 4(4), pages 1-31, October.
    27. Matthew Gentzkow, 2006. "Television and Voter Turnout," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 121(3), pages 931-972.
    28. Augusto Rupérez-Micola & Arturo Bris & Albert Banal-Estañol, 2009. "TV or not TV? Subtitling and English skills," Economics Working Papers 1156, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
    29. Hoyt Bleakley & Aimee Chin, 2008. "What Holds Back the Second Generation?: The Intergenerational Transmission of Language Human Capital Among Immigrants," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 43(2), pages 267-298.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Augusto Rupérez Micola & Ainhoa Aparicio Fenoll & Albert Banal-Estañol & Arturo Bris, 2016. "TV or not TV? The impact of subtitling on English skills," Carlo Alberto Notebooks 491, Collegio Carlo Alberto.
    2. Diemo Urbig & Katrin Muehlfeld & Vivien Procher & Arjen Witteloostuijn, 2020. "Strategic Decision-Making in a Global Context: The Comprehension Effect of Foreign Language Use on Cooperation," Management International Review, Springer, vol. 60(3), pages 351-385, June.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Augusto Rupérez Micola & Ainhoa Aparicio Fenoll & Albert Banal-Estañol & Arturo Bris, 2016. "TV or not TV? The impact of subtitling on English skills," Carlo Alberto Notebooks 491, Collegio Carlo Alberto.
    2. Melitz, Jacques & Toubal, Farid, 2014. "Native language, spoken language, translation and trade," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(2), pages 351-363.
    3. Ruben Enikolopov & Maria Petrova & Ekaterina Zhuravskaya, 2011. "Media and Political Persuasion: Evidence from Russia," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(7), pages 3253-3285, December.
    4. Victor Ginsburgh & Shlomo Weber, 2020. "The Economics of Language," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 58(2), pages 348-404, June.
    5. Couttenier, Mathieu & Hatte, Sophie, 2016. "Mass media effects on non-governmental organizations," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 123(C), pages 57-72.
    6. Strömberg, David & Prat, Andrea, 2011. "The Political Economy of Mass Media," CEPR Discussion Papers 8246, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    7. Campa, Pamela, 2018. "Press and leaks: Do newspapers reduce toxic emissions?," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 91(C), pages 184-202.
    8. Ruben Durante & Paolo Pinotti & Andrea Tesei, 2013. "Voting Alone? The Political and Cultural Consequences of Commercial TV," Sciences Po publications 2013-10, Sciences Po.
    9. Esther Hauk & Giovanni Immordino, 2014. "Parents, Television and Cultural Change," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 124(579), pages 1040-1065, September.
    10. Antonio Di Paolo & Aysit Tansel, 2015. "Returns to Foreign Language Skills in a Developing Country: The Case of Turkey," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 51(4), pages 407-421, April.
    11. Ramon Caminal & Lorenzo Cappellari & Antonio Di Paolo, 2018. "Linguistic Skills and the Intergenerational Transmission of Language," Working Papers 1053, Barcelona School of Economics.
    12. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/7o52iohb7k6srk09n8t4pad92 is not listed on IDEAS
    13. repec:edn:sirdps:417 is not listed on IDEAS
    14. Cheung, Maria, 2012. "Edutainment Radio, Women's Status and Primary School Participation: Evidence from Cambodia," Research Papers in Economics 2012:5, Stockholm University, Department of Economics.
    15. Benjamin A. Olken, 2009. "Do Television and Radio Destroy Social Capital? Evidence from Indonesian Villages," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 1(4), pages 1-33, October.
    16. repec:hal:wpspec:info:hdl:2441/7o52iohb7k6srk09n8t4pad92 is not listed on IDEAS
    17. Kim, Woojin, 2022. "Television and American consumerism," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 208(C).
    18. Øystein Hernæs & Simen Markussen & Knut Røed, 2019. "Television, Cognitive Ability, and High School Completion," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 54(2), pages 371-400.
    19. Pamela Campa & Michel Serafinelli, 2019. "Politico-Economic Regimes and Attitudes: Female Workers under State Socialism," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 101(2), pages 233-248, May.
    20. Antonio Di Paolo & Aysit Tansel, 2015. "Returns to Foreign Language Skills in a Developing Country: The Case of Turkey," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 51(4), pages 407-421, April.
    21. Wang, Haining & Cheng, Zhiming & Smyth, Russell, 2016. "Language and consumption," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 135-151.
    22. Lo Turco, Alessia & Maggioni, Daniela, 2018. "Effects of Islamic religiosity on bilateral trust in trade: The case of Turkish exports," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(4), pages 947-965.
    23. Ruben Durante & Paolo Pinotti & Andrea Tesei, 2014. "No News, Big News. The political consequences of entertainment TV," Working Papers 063, "Carlo F. Dondena" Centre for Research on Social Dynamics (DONDENA), Università Commerciale Luigi Bocconi.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Television; Subtitling; Foreign language skills;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I21 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Analysis of Education
    • Z11 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Economics of the Arts and Literature

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:jeborg:v:158:y:2019:i:c:p:487-499. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jebo .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.