Template-type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0  
Author-Name: José Antonio Alonso
Author-Workplace-Name: Universidad Complutense de Madrid. Departamento de Economía Aplicada II (Estructura Económica y Economía Industrial)
Title: Naturaleza económica de la lengua
Abstract: Being part of a linguistic community has economic effects since it affects transaction costs of economic
	operations, it defines identity social cohesion components of a community, and it supports
	a series of activities (cultural industries) that generate income and employment. However, the language
	has a series of specific characteristics of economic resource or asset, that make it different
	the ones in which the market can operate with efficiency. These characteristics make the language
	a club public good: with accessing costs but lack of rivalry in its use. In the present work we discuss
	the characteristics that give the language its singularity as economic resource. More specifically,
	we explore its nature as club public good, by studying costs and benefits associated to the
	membership of a particular linguistic club. Finally, we analyze, in a more precise way, factors that
	might condition efficient behaviours of an agent in deciding its access to a particular linguistic
	club; and we discuss the components which determine a linguistic community optimum size.
Keywords: linguistic community, economic effects, transaction costs, economic operations, cultural industries
Creation-Date: 2006 
Length: pages 29
X-File-Ref: http://america.sim.ucm.es/repec/ucm/ref/dticei02-06.txt
File-URL: https://eprints.ucm.es/id/eprint/9671/1/DT02-06.pdf
File-Format: Application/pdf
File-Function: Full text
Handle: RePEc:ucm:dticei:02-06