TY  - RPRT
        AU  - Falck, Oliver
AU  - Heblich, Stephan
AU  - Lameli, Alfred
AU  - Suedekum, Jens
        TI  - Dialects, Cultural Identity, and Economic Exchange
        PY  - 2010/Feb/
        PB  - Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
        CY  - Bonn
        T2  - IZA Discussion Paper
        IS  - 4743
        UR  - https://www.iza.org/index.php/publications/dp4743
        AB  - 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.
        KW  - dialects
KW  - language
KW  - culture
KW  - internal migration
KW  - gravity
KW  - Germany
        ER  -