%0 Report
        %A Falck, Oliver
%A Heblich, Stephan
%A Lameli, Alfred
%A Suedekum, Jens
        %T Dialects, Cultural Identity, and Economic Exchange
        %D 2010
        %8 2010 Feb
        %I Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
        %C Bonn
        %7 IZA Discussion Paper
        %N 4743
        %U https://www.iza.org/index.php/publications/dp4743
        %X We investigate whether time-persistent cultural borders impede economic exchange across regions of the same country. To measure cultural differences we evaluate, for the first time in economics, linguistic micro-data about phonological and grammatical features of German dialects. These data are taken from a unique linguistic survey conducted between 1879 and 1888 in 45,000 schools. Matching this information to 439 current German regions, we construct a dialect similarity matrix. Using a gravity analysis, we show that current cross-regional migration is positively affected by historical dialect similarity. This suggests that cultural identities formed in the past still influence economic exchange today.
        %K dialects
%K language
%K culture
%K internal migration
%K gravity
%K Germany