"Languages differ dramatically in how much they require their speakers to mark the timing of events when speaking. In this paper I test the hypothesis that being required to speak differently about future events (what linguists call strongly grammaticalized future-time reference) leads speakers to treat the future as more distant, and to take fewer future-oriented actions.Pretty interesting how culture and language choices may impact savings habits! Read more at Yale's Economics website. (Thanks, Tom)
"Consistent with this hypothesis I find that in every major region of the world, speakers of strong-FTR languages save less per year, hold less retirement wealth, smoke more, are more likely to be obese, and suffer from worse long-run health. This holds true even after extensive controls that compare only demographically similar individuals born and living in the same country.
"While not dispositive, the evidence does not seem to support the most obvious forms of common causation. Implications of these findings for theories of intertemporal choice are discussed."
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
The Effect of Language on Economic Behavior: Evidence from Savings Rates, Health Behaviors, and Retirement Assets
New paper published at Yale:
Why Women Aren’t C.E.O.s, According to Women Who Almost Were
"It’s not a pipeline problem. It’s about loneliness, competition and deeply rooted barriers." Read more in the NYT .
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Even women who earn overwhelmingly positive performance reviews are told that they have ‘personality flaws,’ a new study finds. The double...
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"Why I don’t talk about race with White people." Read more in Medium .
