Moreno-Ternero, Juan D.Alcalde-Unzu, JorgeWeber, Shlomo2022-08-252022-08-252022Journal of Economic Theory 203 (2022) 10546810.1016/j.jet.2022.105468http://hdl.handle.net/10433/14242Identificador de proyecto: PID2020-115011GB-I00, funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033; PGC2018-093542-B-I00 funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and by ERDF A way of making EuropeWe address the problem of assessing the value of a language. We consider a stylized model of multi- lingual societies in which we introduce axioms formalizing the principles of impartiality, monotonicity, invariance and consistency. We show that the combination of these axioms characterizes a family of communicative benefit functions which assign a value to each language in the society. The functions within the family involve a two-step procedure. First, they identify the groups of agents that can communicate in each language. Second, each group is assigned an aggregate (size-dependent) value, which is evenly divided among the languages in which the group can communicate. Our novel approach could be useful in a wide range of empirical applications and policy decisions.application/pdfenAtribución 4.0 Internacionalhttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Value of a languageCommunicative benefitsMeasureAxiomsCharacterizationjournal articleopen access