Wage Returns to English Proficiency in Poland Vera A. Adamchik 1 & Thomas J. Hyclak 2 & Piotr Sedlak 3 & Larry W. Taylor 2 # Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2019 Abstract We investigate the effect of English language proficiency on the wages of native full-time employees in Poland. Using a unique data set with information on over 600,000 survey respondents polled over the five-year period from 2013 to 2017, we employ an IVapproach founded on a natural experiment - namely, the reform of foreign language instruction in Polish schools. Our preferred estimates indicate that monthly wages for those individuals with ‘good’ or ‘very good’ knowledge of English exceeded the wages of those with ‘no English’ (or those with just a conversational proficiency) by nearly 60% for men and more than 50% for women. The estimates are statistically significant for both genders, and suggest quantitatively relevant wage returns for proficiency in English. Keywords Wage differentials . Human capital . English language competence . Transitional economies JEL Classification I26 . J24 . J31 . P23 Introduction How does proficiency in English affect the earnings of Europeans for whom English is not their native tongue? From survey responses in the multi-lingual European Union (EU), large majorities express the belief that knowledge of languages other than their mother tongue is very useful for attaining a better job. Moreover, this belief has influenced the educational decisions of Europeans and their governments. Consider that in year 2014, 83.8% of all primary education students across the EU studied at least one foreign language, with English as the most common language to learn (EC/EACEA/Eurydice 2017, p. 11). Journal of Labor Research https://doi.org/10.1007/s12122-019-09291-2 * Thomas J. Hyclak tjh7@lehigh.edu 1 University of Houston –Victoria, Victoria, TX, USA 2 Lehigh University, Bethlehem, PA, USA 3 Cracow University of Economics, Kraków, Poland