Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/124913 
Year of Publication: 
2015
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 9383
Publisher: 
Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
According to Chen's (2013) linguistic-savings hypothesis, languages which grammatically separate the future and the present (like English or Italian) induce less future-oriented behavior than languages in which speakers can refer to the future by using present tense (like German). We complement Chen's approach with experimentally elicited time preference data from a bilingual city in Northern Italy. We find that German-speaking primary school children are about 46% more likely than Italian-speaking children to delay gratification in an intertemporal choice experiment. The difference remains significant in several robustness checks and when controlling for a broad range of factors, including risk attitudes, IQ or family background.
Subjects: 
intertemporal choice
language
children
experiment
JEL: 
C91
D03
D90
Document Type: 
Working Paper

Files in This Item:
File
Size
334.09 kB





Items in EconStor are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.