ABSTRACT
We are now in a position to move beyond the mere statement that foreign language skills are economically valuable.
First, we have seen that investigating this issue raises questions that are sharply distinct from those that are usually addressed in applied linguistics, including in the research about multilingualism at work. We have then noted that the widely held view that foreign language skills are valuable is often based on non-generalisable, sometimes even anecdotal observations or indirect inference, with not infrequent mix-ups between normative and positive considerations. The only robust empirical basis for quantitative evaluations was to be found in the language-based earnings differentials reviewed in Chapter 4; apart from that, existing research offered little basis for any sort of estimates of the value of language skills.
