Linguistic Distances and Ethno-Linguistic Fractionalisation and Disenfranchisement Indices

The chapter gives an overview of the various approaches to compute linguistic distances (the lexicostatistic method, Levenshtein distances, distances based on language trees, phonetic distances, the ASJP project and distances based on learning scores) as well as distances between groups. It also briefly describes how distances directly affect economic outcomes such as international trade, migrations, language acquisition and earnings, translations. Finally one can construct indices that take account (or not) of distances and how these indices are used by economists to measure their impact on outcomes such as redistribution, the provision of public goods, growth, or corruption aswell as on the effects of certain linguistic policies.