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The economics of language may not yet be a mainstream subfield of economics. It is, however, a vibrant area of study that has by now generated a substantial volume of research. The investigation of this topic is generally traced back to Marschak (1965), who appears to have been the first to bring economic concepts–such as costs and efficiency–to the study of language. Most of the chapters in this volume concern how language, broadly defined, influences economic variables; such research has demonstrated that there are benefits from incorporating linguistic variables and considerations into several different areas of traditional economic analysis. In this chapter I address the reverse question: how do economic analysis and economic reasoning provide insight into linguistic phenomena? More specifically, I consider how economics and economic models shed light on language change.

To be clear at the outset …