Deeper crisis, higher skills demand? Impact of the European financial crisis on demand for German language skills

We analyze the 2007 European financial crisis' impact on demand for new language skills. The crisis affected German-speaking regions less. Learning German became relatively more attractive migration and trade. construct a sub-national database as foreign exam (TestDaF) participation rates between 2001–2013 define regional indicators. Using multiple-group, multiple-period difference-in-differences framework with propensity score matching, we find that TestDaF increased significantly in crisis-affected regions, driven by youth severely-affected Hellenic Latin linguistic regions.