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 finansijska kriza probudila je interesovanje za jedno od najstarijih pitanja ekonomije, koje datira sigurno iz vremena pre Adama Smita. Pitanje glasi: zašto u državama sa naizgled sličnom privredom i institucijama ljudi štede potpuno drugačije?
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.
Mnogi vrhunski ekonomisti su se ovim pitanjem bavili ceo život, mnogo smo napredovali kao nauka i dosta toga razumemo o ovom pitanju. Danas ću govoriti o novoj, interesantnoj hipotezi i veoma značajnim saznanjima kojima se bavim, a tiču se veze između strukture jezika koji govorite i sopstvene sklonosti ka štednji. Ispričaću nešto o stopama štednje, nešto o jeziku, a onda ću to 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.
Hajde da razmislimo malo o državama članicama OECD-a, Organizacije za ekonomsku saradnju i razvoj. Države OECD-a obično smatramo za najbogatije, najindustrijalizovane. Pristupanjem OECD-u su potvrdile zajedničku posvećenost demokratiji, otvorenom tržištu i slobodnoj trgovini. Uprkos sličnostima, postoje ogromne razlike u ponašanju štediša.
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.
Skroz na levoj strani ovog grafikona vidite da mnoge zemlje OECD-a svake godine uštede preko četvrtine svog BDP-a, a neke zemlje OECD-a uštede i preko trećine BDP-a godišnje. Na desnom kraju OECD-a nalazi se Grčka. Vidite da je u poslednjih 25 godina Grčka jedva uštedela više od 10 posto svog BDP-a. Treba napomenuti i da su SAD i Britanija odmah do nje.
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.
Pošto smo uočili ove razlike u stopama štednje, kako je moguće da jezik ima ikakve veze sa tim razlikama? Evo u čemu je ključna razlika između jezika. Lingvisti i kognitivni naučnici ovo pitanje istražuju godinama. Ja ću samo povezati ta dva 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.
Verovatno ste već primetili da sam Kinez. Odrastao sam na Srednjem zapadu SAD-a. Prilično rano sam shvatio da me kineski jezik tera da govorim - u stvari, još je važnije - čak i da mislim o porodici na potpuno drugačiji način.
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.
Zašto je tako? Evo primera. Zamislite da vam predstavim svog "uncle" (engl. ujak, stric, teča). Razumeli biste šta sam rekao na engleskom. Ipak, da govorimo mandarinski kineski, ne bih imao tu mogućnost. Ne bih mogao da prenesem tako malo informacija. Zbog jezika ne bih mogao samo da vam kažem: "Ovo je moj <i>uncle</i>", već bih morao da izgovorim mnogo dodatnih informacija. Zbog jezika bih morao da vam kažem da li mi je on ujak, stric ili možda teča, a ako mi je stric, da li je stariji ili mlađi od mog oca. Sve te informacije su obavezne. Zbog kineskog ne mogu ništa da izostavim. Da budem precizniji, zbog kineskog jezika 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."
To mi je bilo jako zanimljivo kad sam bio dete, ali me danas kao ekonomistu još više fascinira što se neke od istih razlika primećuju i u izrazima o vremenu. Ako govorim engleski, menjam gramatičke oblike ako govorim o kiši iz prošlosti: "Juče je padala kiša", kiši iz sadašnjosti: "Sada pada kiša" ili kiši iz budućnosti: "Sutra će padati kiša". Engleski iziskuje mnogo više informacija o tome kada se radnja odvija. Zašto? Zato što o tome moram da mislim, pa menjam gramatički oblik i kad govorim da će kiša sigurno padati ili da će možda padati. U engleskom se ne može 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.
S druge strane, upravo biste to rekli na kineskom. Govornik kineskog praktično može da kaže nešto što govorniku engleskog strašno para uši. Može da kaže: "Kiša pada juče", "Kiša pada sada" ili "Kiša pada sutra". Na neki način, kineski ne deli vremenski spektar onako kako to radimo zbog engleskog jezika da bismo ga pravilno 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."
Postoji li ovakva razlika u jezicima samo između izrazito nesrodnih jezika, kao što su engleski i kineski? Zapravo, ne. Verovatno znate da je engleski germanski jezik. Možda ne znate da engleski baš i ne pripada svojoj zajednici. To je jedini germanski jezik koji zahteva naglašavanje vremena. Na primer, govornicima većine drugih germanskih jezika prirodno je da govore o kiši tako što će reći: "Morgen regnet es", bukvalno prevedeno: "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.
To me je, kao bihejvioralnog ekonomistu, dovelo do zanimljive hipoteze. Da li način na koji govorite o vremenu, na koji, zbog jezika, razmišljate o vremenu, utiče na vašu sklonost da se ponašate na određeni način? Govorite engleski, futurizovan jezik. To znači da ste, kad razgovarate o budućnosti ili nekom budućem događaju, gramatički primorani da to potpuno odvojite od sadašnjosti i o tome instinktivno mislite kao o nečemu drugačijem. Pretpostavimo da zbog te instinktivne razlike neprimetno odvajate budućnost od sadašnjosti kad god govorite. Ako je to tačno i ako budućnost doživljavate kao udaljenu i drugačiju od sadašnjosti, biće vam teže da štedite. A ako govorite besfuturni jezik, o sadašnjosti i budućnosti govorite istovetno. Ako njih zbog toga doživljavate identičnim, biće vam lakše da štedite.
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.
E, ovo je nerealna teorija. Ja sam profesor, plaćaju me da smišljam nerealne teorije. Kako da zaista proverimo takvu teoriju? Ja sam proučavao lingvističku literaturu. Vrlo je zanimljivo da postoje grupe govornika besfuturnih jezika širom sveta. Ovo je grupa govornika besfuturnih jezika u severnoj Evropi. Kad počnete da proučavate podatke, za govornike besfuturnih jezika iz celog sveta ispostavi se da su uglavnom među najboljim štedišama na svetu.
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.
Čisto da vam nagovestim, pogledajte opet grafikon OECD-a o kom smo govorili. Vidimo da su sve ovakve linije duže i da su sve pomerene ka levo u odnosu na linije koje predstavljaju članove OECD-a sa futurizovanim jezicima. Kolika je prosečna razlika? Ušteda od pet posto BDP-a na godinu dana. Nakon 25 godina, ovo ima ogromne dugoročne posledice na bogatstvo države.
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.
Iako su ovi rezultati sugestivni, države se mogu razlikovati na toliko načina da može biti veoma teško uzeti u obzir sve te razlike. Ipak, sad ću vam pokazati nešto čime se bavim godinu dana, pokušavam da prikupim najveće setove podataka kojima mi kao ekonomisti imamo pristup i pokušaću da odstranim sve moguće razlike, ne bih li opovrgao ovu povezanost. Ukratko, koliko god da je testiram, ne mogu da je opovrgnem. Pogledajte koliko daleko 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.
Prosto prikupljam velike setove podataka iz celog sveta. Imamo Anketu o zdravlju, starenju i penzionisanju u Evropi. Iz ovog seta podataka saznajemo da penzionisane evropske porodice imaju mnogo strpljenja za anketare. (Smeh) Zamislite da ste penzionisani Belgijanac i da vam neko pokuca na vrata. "Izvinite, mogu li da vam prekontrolišem dokumente o investicijama? Znate li možda koliko vam vredi kuća? Je l' biste hteli da mi kažete? Da nemate slučajno hodnik koji je duži od 10 metara? Ako imate, je l' bih mogao da izmerim koliko vam vremena treba da ga prehodate? Hajde sad stegnite ovaj uređaj što snažnije, dominantom rukom, da vam izmerim snagu stiska. A je l' možete da duvate u ovu cev da vam izmerim kapacitet pluća?" Anketa traje više od jednog dana. (Smeh) To smo spojili sa Anketom o demografiji i zdravlju koju je USAID sproveo u afričkim zemljama u razvoju, a to istraživanje može čak direktno da odredi status HIV-a za porodice, recimo, u ruralnoj Nigeriji. To smo spojili sa svetskom anketom o vrednostima, koja meri političke stavove i, na sreću, ponašanje štediša u milionima porodica iz stotina država čitavog sveta.
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.
Prikupili smo sve te podatke, spojili ih i dobili ovu kartu. Primetićete da u devet država sveta postoje znatne domorodačke populacije koje govore i futurizovane i besfuturne jezike. Ja ću statistički upariti porodice koje su identične po skoro svemu što se može izmeriti, a onda ću ispitati da li veza između jezika i štednje opstaje i posle kontrole na svim ovim nivoima.
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.
Koje karakteristike možemo uzeti u obzir? Povezaću porodice na osnovu države rođenja i stanovnja, demografskih odlika - pola, starosti - količine prihoda u odnosu na njihovu državu, obrazovanja, porodične strukture. Ispostavilo se da se u Evropi možete venčati na šest načina. Najdetaljnije ću ih razdvojiti prema religiji, pošto postoje 72 kategorije religija na svetu - izuzetan stepen razdvajanja. Postoji 1,4 milijarde načina kako porodica može izgledati.
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.
Ovo što ću nadalje govoriti u suštini je samo poređenje praktično identičnih porodica. Ovo je praktično misaoni eksperiment pronalaženja dve porodice koje obe žive u Briselu, identične su u svakoj od ovih dimenzija, ali jedna govori flamanski, a druga francuski; ili dve porodice koje žive u ruralnom području Nigerije, od kojih jedna govori 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.
Da li i posle ovako detaljne kontrole izgleda da govornici besfuturnih jezika štede više? Da, čak i posle ovakve kontrole, verovatnoća da su govornici besfuturnih jezika štedeli u nekoj godini veća je 30 posto. Ima li to kumulativne posledice? Da, do penzije će govornici besfuturnih jezika, ako zadrže iste prihode, imati 25% više ušteđevine.
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 podatke još nekako tumačiti? Da, kao što sam rekao, ekonomisti prikupljaju mnogo zdravstvenih podataka. Kako se zdravstveno ponašanje može posmatrati kao štednja? Uzmimo za primer pušenje cigareta. Ono je na neki način negativna štednja. Ako je štednja bol u sadašnjosti u zamenu za uživanje u budućnosti, pušenje je upravo suprotno. To je uživanje u sadašnjosti u zamenu za bol u budućnosti. Onda treba očekivati i suprotne posledice. To smo i zaključili. Od 20 do 24 posto je manja verovatnoća da su govornici besfuturnih jezika pušili u nekom trenutku u poređenju sa identičnim porodicama i od 13 do 17 posto je manje verovatno da će biti gojazni kada odu u penziju, a 21 posto je veća verovatnoća da će reći da su koristili kondom u poslednjem seksualnom odnosu. Ima još mnogo ovakvih razlika. Skoro da je nemoguće ne pronaći ponašanje štediša za koje ova pojava nije izražena.
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.
Zajedno sa kolegama lingvistima i ekonomistima sa Jejla tek počinjem time da se bavim i da zaista istražujem i proučavam način na koji nas ove male razlike teraju da o budućnosti razmišljamo manje ili više kad god govorimo. Konačni cilj, kada razumemo kako ove jedva primetne pojave utiču na način donošenja odluka, jeste da svima ponudimo sredstva pomoću kojih mogu postati bolje štediše i svesnije investirati u svoju budućnost.
Thank you very much.
Hvala vam.
(Applause)
(Aplauz)