The Economic Impact of Chinese Dialects

    Although Chinese culture is a complete unity， it shows great diversity in regional culture including languages because of its large population and numerous nationalities. In recent years， dialects， as an important representative of culture， are becoming increasingly popular among economists because of its non-negligible impact on economics. Also， the various types of Chinese dialects has provided a good data sample to econometric. Therefore， this article makes a conclusion about the present research on the impact of dialects in three levels， that is labor force， enterprise and macroeconomic.

    At the level of labor force， dialect diversity will influence the social relations and individual ability of labor force， thus affecting their income and work quality. Ma Shuang et al. （2018） studied the influence of dialect diversity in migrant areas on the accumulation of social capital of migrant workers， and found that dialect diversity reduces the income level of workers by impeding the development of their social network. Cheng Bo（2017） found that language diversity reduced the quality of analysts earnings forecast， while the education level of employees would weaken the negative impact of language diversity on the quality of analysts earnings forecast. And the key to this problem is to improve Mandarin. By analyzing the data of Chinese Family Panel Studies （CFPS） and China Labor and Dynamics Survey （CLDS）， Chen Yuanyuan （2016） finds that ones improvement in Mandarin， including listening and speaking， can approximately increase his income by 3%-4% among the floating population with different dialects in service industries.

    However， the ability to speak a certain dialect can bring workers several advantages in the region of that dialect， such as the improvement in wages of the migrant workers that can speak Shanghais dialect in Shanghais sales-related service industries （Chen et al.，2014）. The reason for the benefit is that an identical dialect not only breaks communication barriers， but also shows cultural identity， making local consumers trust them more with a similar cultural background. According to Liu Yuyun （2015）， the diversity in dialects also blocks labor mobility， showing an inverted U relationship， and in turn impedes the integration of markets. Also， the similarity in dialects can improve the management efficiency （Dai Yiyi， 2017） and merger performance.

    At the enterprise level， the diversity of dialects will lead to the decline of internal efficiency， but some studies have shown that it is beneficial to the innovation output. Milliken and Maetins （1996） analyzed the micro impact of diversity at the enterprise level and found that diversity reduced the cohesion of the team and increased the cost of cooperation. Parrotta et al. （2012） used enterprise samples to find that age and ethnic diversity lower the production capacity of enterprises. However， Pan Yue （2017） used the number of urban dialects and dialect differentiation index to measure regional cultural diversity， and empirically studied its impact on enterprise innovation. The results showed that in regions with more diverse cultures， private high-tech enterprises would gain more innovative output.

    At the macroeconomic level， the impact of dialect diversity on the economy is mainly negative.

    Firstly， the diversity of dialects is an important factor widening the psychological distance between people and thus leads to a sense of distrust which will stimulate conflicts and further affect economic development. In this level， there are few studies that take dialect diversity as the proxy variable of cultural diversity. However， there are some economists using ethnic diversity to represent cultural diversity in foreign studies， and the effect of both is the same. Alesin & La Ferrara （2005） used data samples from the United States to conclude that ethnic diversity would affect neighborhood trust and raise the cost of economic communication， thus hindering economic growth. Alesina et al. （2012） emphasized the inequality dimension of ethnic diversity， and believed that the interaction between ethnic differentiation and racial inequality led to conflicts， resulting in the negative impact on the economy. All the above studies have concluded that cultural diversity can affect the trust between people， and thus have a negative impact on economic development. Relevant research has laid a foundation for domestic research.

    Secondly， dialect diversity is not conducive to the knowledge and technology， thus weakening human capital. Foreign studies took linguistic diversity as a representative of cultural diversity. For example， Easterly & Levine （1997） used data from different countries and found that ethnic linguistic differentiation would hinder economic growth by reducing school enrollment rate， leading to economic tragedy in Africa. Similar conclusions have been reached in Chinese studies. For example， Xu Xianxiang et al. （2015） found that the diversity of dialects would hamper the spread of technology and knowledge， which does harm to economic growth.

    In addition， dialect diversity will also affect the degree of opening to the outside world， urbanization rate and labor mobility and other factors. Li Guangqin et al. （2017） studied from the perspective of language diversity and found that language diversity would reduce the openness of the region; Ding Congming et al. （2018） found that dialect diversity is an important factor which is harmful for the integration of the domestic market. Shao Shuai （2017） found that dialect diversity has a significant negative impact on urbanization rate. Liu yuyun （2016） found that the influence of dialect differences on labor mobility is inverted u-shaped. However， other studies have shown that the impact of cultural diversity is not negative all the times. For example， Bellinli et al. （2013） found that cultural diversity improved the level of urban productivity by using empirical data from 12 countries.

    With more and more relevant researches， the economic impact of dialects will become clearer. Promoting mandarin becomes increasingly important to overcome the negative impacts of dialect， while protecting dialects is equally important because of the glorious cultures they represents and the innovation they brings. How to find a balance between efficiency and cultural protection has yet to be made.

    【作者簡介】林亨（1997.11-），男，汉族，广东汕头人，中山大学国际金融学院，本科在读，研究方向：金融学。