The global economic financial crisis has reignited public interest in something that's actually one of the oldest questions in economics, dating back to at least before Adam Smith. And that is, why is it that countries with seemingly similar economies and institutions can display radically different savings behavior?
Globalna ekonomska financijska kriza ponovno je pobudila interes javnosti u vezi s jednim od najstarijih ekonomskih pitanja još od vremena prije Adama Smitha. Zašto zemlje s naizgled sličnim gospodarstvima i institucijama mogu iskazivati posve različita ponašanja glede štednje?
Now, many brilliant economists have spent their entire lives working on this question, and as a field we've made a tremendous amount of headway and we understand a lot about this. What I'm here to talk with you about today is an intriguing new hypothesis and some surprisingly powerful new findings that I've been working on about the link between the structure of the language you speak and how you find yourself with the propensity to save. Let me tell you a little bit about savings rates, a little bit about language, and then I'll draw that connection.
Brojni iznimni ekonomisti posvetili su čitave svoje živote ovome pitanju, čitavo je područje silno napredovalo i mi o svemu znamo osjetno više. Danas ću vam govoriti o intrigantnoj novoj hipotezi i o iznenađujuće moćnim otkrićima na kojima sam radio - o vezi između strukture jezika kojim govorimo i naših sklonosti štednji. Dopustite mi nekoliko riječi o stopama štednje, ponešto o jeziku, a potom ću to dvoje i povezati.
Let's start by thinking about the member countries of the OECD, or the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development. OECD countries, by and large, you should think about these as the richest, most industrialized countries in the world. And by joining the OECD, they were affirming a common commitment to democracy, open markets and free trade. Despite all of these similarities, we see huge differences in savings behavior.
Razmotrimo najprije zemlje članice OECD-a, tj. Organizacije za ekonomsku suradnju i razvoj. Općenito, najbogatije, industrijski najrazvijenije zemlje svijeta. Pristupanjem OECD-u, te su zemlje potvrdile zajedničku predanost demokraciji, otvorenim tržištima i slobodnoj trgovini. Unatoč sličnostima, ogromne su razlike u odnosu prema štednji.
So all the way over on the left of this graph, what you see is many OECD countries saving over a quarter of their GDP every year, and some OECD countries saving over a third of their GDP per year. Holding down the right flank of the OECD, all the way on the other side, is Greece. And what you can see is that over the last 25 years, Greece has barely managed to save more than 10 percent of their GDP. It should be noted, of course, that the United States and the U.K. are the next in line.
Na krajnjem lijevom dijelu ovoga prikaza uočavate da mnoge zemlje OECD-a svake godine uštede više od četvrtine svoga BDP-a te da neke zemlje OECD-a ugodišnje uštede više od trećine svoga BDP-a. Na desnom kraju prikaza je - Grčka. Možete vidjeti da je tijekom posljednjih 25 godina Grčka jedva uspijevala štedjeti više od 10% svoga BDP-a. Napomenuti treba da slijede - SAD i UK.
Now that we see these huge differences in savings rates, how is it possible that language might have something to do with these differences? Let me tell you a little bit about how languages fundamentally differ. Linguists and cognitive scientists have been exploring this question for many years now. And then I'll draw the connection between these two behaviors.
Kad vidimo ove silne razlike u stopama štednje, kako je moguće da bi jezik mogao imati ikakve veze s njima? Reći ću vam nešto o tome po čemu se jezici suštinski razlikuju. Jezikoslovci i kognitivni znanstvenici godinama se već bave ovim pitanjem. Objasnit ću kasnije poveznicu između ovih dvaju ponašanja.
Many of you have probably already noticed that I'm Chinese. I grew up in the Midwest of the United States. And something I realized quite early on was that the Chinese language forced me to speak about and -- in fact, more fundamentally than that -- ever so slightly forced me to think about family in very different ways.
Većina je vas vjerojatno već primijetila da sam ja Kinez. Odrastao sam na Srednjem Zapadu SAD-a. Prilično sam rano shvatio da me kineski jezik prisiljavao da govorim - ustvari, još i bitnije od toga - da mislim o obitelji na posve različite načine.
Now, how might that be? Let me give you an example. Suppose I were talking with you and I was introducing you to my uncle. You understood exactly what I just said in English. If we were speaking Mandarin Chinese with each other, though, I wouldn't have that luxury. I wouldn't have been able to convey so little information. What my language would have forced me to do, instead of just telling you, "This is my uncle," is to tell you a tremendous amount of additional information. My language would force me to tell you whether or not this was an uncle on my mother's side or my father's side, whether this was an uncle by marriage or by birth, and if this man was my father's brother, whether he was older than or younger than my father. All of this information is obligatory. Chinese doesn't let me ignore it. And in fact, if I want to speak correctly, Chinese forces me to constantly think about it.
Kako je to moguće? Dat ću vam primjer... Pretpostavimo da sam vam predstavljao svoga "unclea" (engl. ujak, stric, tetak). U potpunosti ste razumjeli što sam vam upravo rekao na engleskom. Međutim, da smo razgovarali na mandarinskom kineskom, ne bi mi bilo tako jednostavno. Ne bih vam mogao dati toliko malo informacija. Zbog svoga bih vam jezika, umjesto da vam jednostavno kažem: "Ovo je moj 'uncle'.", morao prenijeti još i ogromnu količinu dodatnih informacija. Moj bi me jezik primorao da vam kažem je li on s majčine ili je s očeve strane; jesmo li u krvnom srodstvu ili nismo; i ako mi je stric, je li stariji ili je mlađi od moga oca. Sve su ove informacije obvezne. Kineski mi ne dopušta zanemariti ih. Zapravo, želim li ispravno govoriti, kineski me primorava da o tome stalno razmišljam.
Now, that fascinated me endlessly as a child, but what fascinates me even more today as an economist is that some of these same differences carry through to how languages speak about time. So for example, if I'm speaking in English, I have to speak grammatically differently if I'm talking about past rain, "It rained yesterday," current rain, "It is raining now," or future rain, "It will rain tomorrow." Notice that English requires a lot more information with respect to the timing of events. Why? Because I have to consider that and I have to modify what I'm saying to say, "It will rain," or "It's going to rain." It's simply not permissible in English to say, "It rain tomorrow."
Još me kao dijete to beskrajno očaravalo, a danas me još i više kao ekonomista očarava da se neke od tih razlika izražavaju i u tome kako jezici govore o vremenu. Primjerice, govorim li na engleskom, moram govoriti gramatički različito ako govorim o kiši u prošlosti: "Jučer je padala kiša."; o kiši u sadašnjosti: "Danas pada kiša."; ili o kiši u budućnosti: "Sutra će padati kiša.". Primijetili ste da engleski iziskuje osjetno više informacija u vezi s vremenom radnje. Zašto? Zato što to moram uzeti u obzir i moram prilagoditi ono što kanim reći: "Past će kiša." ili "Mogla bi pasti kiša." Na engleskom je jednostavno nedopustivo reći: "Kiša pada sutra.".
In contrast to that, that's almost exactly what you would say in Chinese. A Chinese speaker can basically say something that sounds very strange to an English speaker's ears. They can say, "Yesterday it rain," "Now it rain," "Tomorrow it rain." In some deep sense, Chinese doesn't divide up the time spectrum in the same way that English forces us to constantly do in order to speak correctly.
Naprotiv, to je upravo ono što biste rekli na kineskom. Govornik kineskog jezika smije reći nešto što bi vrlo neobično zvučalo govorniku engleskog jezika. Kinezi mogu reći: "Jučer pada kiša.", "Danas pada kiša.", "Sutra pada kiša.". U nekom dubljem smislu, kineski jezik ne dijeli vremenski spektar onako kako od nas to engleski traži da bismo ispravno govorili.
Is this difference in languages only between very, very distantly related languages, like English and Chinese? Actually, no. So many of you know, in this room, that English is a Germanic language. What you may not have realized is that English is actually an outlier. It is the only Germanic language that requires this. For example, most other Germanic language speakers feel completely comfortable talking about rain tomorrow by saying, "Morgen regnet es," quite literally to an English ear, "It rain tomorrow."
Je li ova jezična razlika svojstvena samo vrlo udaljenim jezicima, poput engleskog i kineskog? Zapravo, nije. Mnogima je među vama poznato da je engleski germanski jezik. Možda ipak ne znate da engleski nije tipičan germanski jezik. Jedini je to germanski jezik koji zahtijeva ovu promjenu. Primjerice, većina govornika ostalih germanskih jezika bez ikakvih poteškoća govori o sutrašnjoj kiši govoreći: "Morgen regnet es."; engleskome uhu doslovce: "Sutra pada kiša."
This led me, as a behavioral economist, to an intriguing hypothesis. Could how you speak about time, could how your language forces you to think about time, affect your propensity to behave across time? You speak English, a futured language. And what that means is that every time you discuss the future, or any kind of a future event, grammatically you're forced to cleave that from the present and treat it as if it's something viscerally different. Now suppose that that visceral difference makes you subtly dissociate the future from the present every time you speak. If that's true and it makes the future feel like something more distant and more different from the present, that's going to make it harder to save. If, on the other hand, you speak a futureless language, the present and the future, you speak about them identically. If that subtly nudges you to feel about them identically, that's going to make it easier to save.
Kao bihevioralnog ekonomista, to me dovelo do zanimljive hipoteze. Može li to kako govorimo o vremenu i kako, zbog jezika, mislimo o vremenu, utjecati na naše ponašajne sklonosti tijekom vremena? Vi govorite engleski, tzv. futurizirani jezik. To znači da svaki put kad govorite o budućnosti, ili o bilo kojem događaju u budućnosti, gramatički ste ga prisiljeni odcijepiti od sadašnjosti i instinktivno o njemu misliti kao o nečemu posve različitom. Pretpostavimo da zbog te instinktivne razlike jedva primjetno u govoru odvajate budućnost od sadašnjosti. Ako je to istina, i ako to budućnost čini nečim udaljenijim i različitijim od sadašnjosti, bit će nam teže i štedjeti. Naprotiv, ako govorite tzv. besfuturnim jezikom, o sadašnjosti i o budućnosti govorite jednako. Ako ih zbog toga i doživljavate jednakima, bit će vam lakše i štedjeti.
Now this is a fanciful theory. I'm a professor, I get paid to have fanciful theories. But how would you actually go about testing such a theory? Well, what I did with that was to access the linguistics literature. And interestingly enough, there are pockets of futureless language speakers situated all over the world. This is a pocket of futureless language speakers in Northern Europe. Interestingly enough, when you start to crank the data, these pockets of futureless language speakers all around the world turn out to be, by and large, some of the world's best savers.
Dakako, ovo je domišljata teorija. Profesor sam; plaćaju me za osmišljavanje takvih teorija. Ali kako bismo je mogli provjeriti? Ja sam se prihvatio jezikoslovne literature. Zanimljivo je da postoje područja s govornicima "besfuturnih" jezika, raširena po cijelome svijetu. Ovo je područje u sjevernoj Europi, gdje se govori "besfuturnim" jezicima. Započnemo li proučavati te podatke, ispostavit će se da su govornici "besfuturnih" jezika, uglavnom, ponajbolji svjetski štediše.
Just to give you a hint of that, let's look back at that OECD graph that we were talking about. What you see is that these bars are systematically taller and systematically shifted to the left compared to these bars which are the members of the OECD that speak futured languages. What is the average difference here? Five percentage points of your GDP saved per year. Over 25 years that has huge long-run effects on the wealth of your nation.
Primjera radi, pogledajmo onaj OECD-ov prikaz o kojemu smo već govorili. Vidite da su ovi stupci viši i da su dosljedno pomaknuti ulijevo za razliku od članica OECD-a u kojima se govori "futuriziranim" jezicima. Kolika je prosječna razlika? Ušteda od pet postotnih bodova BDP-a godišnje. Nakon 25 godina to će imati silne dugoročne učinke na blagostanje nacije.
Now while these findings are suggestive, countries can be different in so many different ways that it's very, very difficult sometimes to account for all of these possible differences. What I'm going to show you, though, is something that I've been engaging in for a year, which is trying to gather all of the largest datasets that we have access to as economists, and I'm going to try and strip away all of those possible differences, hoping to get this relationship to break. And just in summary, no matter how far I push this, I can't get it to break. Let me show you how far you can do that.
Premda su ovi nalazi sugestivni, zemlje se mogu toliko razlikovati da je katkad vrlo teško objasniti sve te moguće razlike. No, prikazat ću vam nešto na čemu sam radio proteklih godinu dana - svoja nastojanja da prikupim sve moguće podatke do kojih, kao ekonomisti, uopće možemo doći. Nastojat ću odstraniti sve te moguće razlike u nadi da ću uspjeti osporiti taj odnos. Ukratko, koliko god se ja trudio, ne mogu ga posve osporiti. Pokazat ću vam koliko daleko uopće možemo ići.
One way to imagine that is I gather large datasets from around the world. So for example, there is the Survey of Health, [Aging] and Retirement in Europe. From this dataset you actually learn that retired European families are extremely patient with survey takers. (Laughter) So imagine that you're a retired household in Belgium and someone comes to your front door. "Excuse me, would you mind if I peruse your stock portfolio? Do you happen to know how much your house is worth? Do you mind telling me? Would you happen to have a hallway that's more than 10 meters long? If you do, would you mind if I timed how long it took you to walk down that hallway? Would you mind squeezing as hard as you can, in your dominant hand, this device so I can measure your grip strength? How about blowing into this tube so I can measure your lung capacity?" The survey takes over a day. (Laughter) Combine that with a Demographic and Health Survey collected by USAID in developing countries in Africa, for example, which that survey actually can go so far as to directly measure the HIV status of families living in, for example, rural Nigeria. Combine that with a world value survey, which measures the political opinions and, fortunately for me, the savings behaviors of millions of families in hundreds of countries around the world.
Zamislite me kako prikupljam masu podataka iz cijeloga svijeta. Primjerice, postoji "Istraživanje o zdravlju, starenju i umirovljenju u Europi". Iz tih je podataka moguće naučiti da su umirovljene europske obitelji izrazito strpljive s istraživačima. (Smijeh) Zamislite da ste umirovljenik u Belgiji i netko vam zakuca na vrata. "Ispričavam se, smijem li malo proučiti vaš dionički portfelj? Znate li možda koliko vrijedi vaša kuća? Možete li mi reći? Je li vaš hodnik možda dulji od 10 metara? Ako jest, smijem li izmjeriti koliko vam vremena treba da biste njime prošli? Biste li svojom dominantnom rukom stisnuli ovu napravu najjače što možete kako bih izmjerio snagu Vašega stiska? A da puhnete najjače što možete u ovu cijev kako bih izmjerio kapacitet Vaših pluća?" Anketa traje dulje od cijeloga dana. (Smijeh) Povežite to s "Demografskim istraživanjem zdravstvenog stanja", što ga provodi USAID u zemljama u razvoju, u Africi primjerice. i kojime je moguće izravno ocijeniti zaraženost HIV-om u obiteljima koje žive, primjerice, u nekom nigerijskom selu. Povežite to sa Svjetskim istraživanjem vrijednosti, kojim se mjere politička uvjerenja i, srećom za mene, navike štednje u milijunima obitelji, u stotinama zemalja diljem cijeloga svijeta.
Take all of that data, combine it, and this map is what you get. What you find is nine countries around the world that have significant native populations which speak both futureless and futured languages. And what I'm going to do is form statistical matched pairs between families that are nearly identical on every dimension that I can measure, and then I'm going to explore whether or not the link between language and savings holds even after controlling for all of these levels.
Objedinite sve te podatke i dobit ćete ovaj zemljovid. Uočit ćete devet zemalja sa znatnim starosjedilačkim stanovništvom koje govori i "besfuturnim" i "futuriziranim" jezicima. Statistički ću upariti obitelji koje su gotovo istovjetne po svim mjerljivim obilježjima, a potom ću istražiti postoji li veza između jezika i navika štednje čak i ako su sva ostala obilježja izjednačena.
What are the characteristics we can control for? Well I'm going to match families on country of birth and residence, the demographics -- what sex, their age -- their income level within their own country, their educational achievement, a lot about their family structure. It turns out there are six different ways to be married in Europe. And most granularly, I break them down by religion where there are 72 categories of religions in the world -- so an extreme level of granularity. There are 1.4 billion different ways that a family can find itself.
Koja obilježja možemo izjednačiti? Izjednačit ću obitelji prema zemlji rođenja i prebivališta; prema demografskim obilježjima - njihovom spolu i njihovoj dobi; primanjima u odnosu na prosjeke zemalja; obrazovanju i obiteljskim strukturama. Ispostavlja se da u Europi postoji šest različitih načina da se vjenčate. U konačnici, izjednačit ću ih prema vjeroispovijesti: u svijetu postoje 72 vrste vjeroispovijesti; dakle, idemo do krajnjih detalja. Postoji 1,4 milijarde načina definiranja obitelji.
Now effectively everything I'm going to tell you from now on is only comparing these basically nearly identical families. It's getting as close as possible to the thought experiment of finding two families both of whom live in Brussels who are identical on every single one of these dimensions, but one of whom speaks Flemish and one of whom speaks French; or two families that live in a rural district in Nigeria, one of whom speaks Hausa and one of whom speaks Igbo.
Praktično sve što ću vam odsad reći bit će usporedba ovih, u osnovi, gotovo istovjetnih obitelji. To je vrlo blisko misaonom pokusu nalaženja dviju obitelji koje obje žive u Bruxellesu i jednake su prema svakome od navedenih obilježja, samo što jedna od njih govori flamanskim, a druga francuskim jezikom; ili dviju obitelji koje žive u ruralnom području Nigerije, i jedna od njih govori jezikom Hausa, a druga Igbo.
Now even after all of this granular level of control, do futureless language speakers seem to save more? Yes, futureless language speakers, even after this level of control, are 30 percent more likely to report having saved in any given year. Does this have cumulative effects? Yes, by the time they retire, futureless language speakers, holding constant their income, are going to retire with 25 percent more in savings.
Čak i kad smo ih izjednačili prema svim ovim sitnim obilježjima, štede li govornici "besfuturnih" jezika više? Da! Govornici "besfuturnih" jezika, čak i kad ih ovako izjednačimo, 30% vjerojatnije izjavit će da su svake godine ponešto uspjeli uštedjeti. Ima li to kakvih zbirnih učinaka? Ima! Do umirovljenja, govornici "besfuturnih", s konstantnim primanjima, uštedjet će oko 25% više.
Can we push this data even further? Yes, because I just told you, we actually collect a lot of health data as economists. Now how can we think about health behaviors to think about savings? Well, think about smoking, for example. Smoking is in some deep sense negative savings. If savings is current pain in exchange for future pleasure, smoking is just the opposite. It's current pleasure in exchange for future pain. What we should expect then is the opposite effect. And that's exactly what we find. Futureless language speakers are 20 to 24 percent less likely to be smoking at any given point in time compared to identical families, and they're going to be 13 to 17 percent less likely to be obese by the time they retire, and they're going to report being 21 percent more likely to have used a condom in their last sexual encounter. I could go on and on with the list of differences that you can find. It's almost impossible not to find a savings behavior for which this strong effect isn't present.
Možemo li još dalekosežnije zaključivati? Možemo! Rekao sam vam da ekonomisti prikupljaju mnoštvo zdravstvenih podataka. Kako možemo zdravstveno ponašanje promatrati kao štednju? Sjetite se pušenja, primjerice. Pušenje je, u svojoj suštini, negativna štednja. Ako je štednja bol u sadašnjosti, koju razmjenjujemo za užitke u budućnosti, pušenje je njena suprotnost. Ono je užitak u sadašnjosti, kojeg razmjenjujemo za boli u budućnosti. Ono što bismo potom trebali očekivati je i suprotan učinak. Upravo to i nalazimo. Govornici "besfuturnih" jezika će 20 do 24 posto manje vjerojatno pušiti u bilo kojem razdoblju života; 13 do 17 posto manje će vjerojatno biti gojazni u doba umirovljenja; 21 posto vjerojatnije izvijestit će da su koristili kondom prilikom posljednjeg spolnog odnosa. Mogao bih tako unedogled s popisom razlika. Gotovo je nemoguće ne pronaći ponašanje u vezi sa štednjom za koje ovaj snažan utjecaj nije vidljiv.
My linguistics and economics colleagues at Yale and I are just starting to do this work and really explore and understand the ways that these subtle nudges cause us to think more or less about the future every single time we speak. Ultimately, the goal, once we understand how these subtle effects can change our decision making, we want to be able to provide people tools so that they can consciously make themselves better savers and more conscious investors in their own future.
S kolegama jezikoslovcima i ekonomistima s Yalea upravo započinjem raditi na istraživanju i razumijevanju kako te nijanse utječu na nas da više ili manje mislimo o budućnosti kad god progovorimo. Konačan je cilj da, jednom kad shvatimo kako te suptilnosti mogu utjecati na naše odlučivanje, pružimo ljudima pomagala kako bi oni svjesno postali bolji štediše i svjesnije ulagali u vlastitu budućnost.
Thank you very much.
Hvala vam puno.
(Applause)
(Pljesak)