The economics of language policy and planning

This chapter uses elementary economic welfare theory to analyse language policy and planning. Government policy is motivated and justified by problems of market failure (inefficiencies) in a laisser-faire situation as well as by a wish for equity and fairness between different individuals. Inefficiency is shown to be a consequence of different properties of language-related goods. Cost–benefit and cost-effectiveness analysis are methods for applying theoretical considerations to practical problems. Here, the costs (structures) of different language planning measures are important. As an illustration, it is shown that the very common ‘percentage rule’ for implementing policy measures can lead to undesired results.