0:00:01they
0:00:09i think you very much
0:00:12so in this period this afternoon's conference a wanting to take this opportunity to talk
0:00:16with you a little bit about some new work doing and how it all started
0:00:20because i saw map
0:00:21the really freaked me out
0:00:23so we show you that map
0:00:25okay and i give you a little bit of background
0:00:27so we have just describe things off
0:00:29and explain i'm a behavioral economist here in jail and so one of the things
0:00:33i finding is how people make decisions over time so a how people think about
0:00:38the future and i
0:00:40people think about the future not influences their behavior with respect to say anything with
0:00:44respect to studying for your exams with respect to sticking to die with respect to
0:00:49quitting smoking
0:00:50now what about this not freak now and in particular so we just say this
0:00:55was the map was released by the european science foundation in your in the late
0:00:58nineteen nineties and in particular would freak me out
0:01:02was this area in blue only put it on a different map so it's a
0:01:05little bit easier to recognize a what this is
0:01:08is the map of northern europe and more really
0:01:11you know through if you're curve was that the european sounds when there's and released
0:01:15a report
0:01:16a number of kind of very are applicable researchers the claim that all the areas
0:01:21inside this blue region were utterly and totally future
0:01:27i would like i mean that simply given extreme statement
0:01:30and
0:01:32you know so i mean is an economist i'm someone used to for example making
0:01:36predictions the go horribly awry
0:01:38but this almost expecting you know so you know perhaps with the exception of iceland
0:01:44you can think about the current kind of your why you can think about the
0:01:48current european financial crisis and the other areas in this area actually are almost perfectly
0:01:54the countries that are doing the best
0:01:56okay and is an economist what i would say is it seems quite cynical these
0:01:59places future this i mean these places where all for a countries that are saving
0:02:04a tremendous amount of money households that are saving a tremendous amount of money
0:02:08countries that don't have problem with the dinner investing in tremendous amount and kind of
0:02:13public infrastructure and in the future they just seem to care about the future
0:02:17what i realise like to this confusion though is that in the freezer european science
0:02:23foundation that by kind of a superstar in imposed and all a they were talking
0:02:27about what an economist would mean when they say that places future list because this
0:02:31was a team of linguist
0:02:33and what we're say was that in fact not households in this region don't kind
0:02:38of channel about the future but that the languages in this region i don't really
0:02:42talk about the future in the same way that languages outside this area talk and
0:02:47what i really think about don't gonna tell you a little bit about right now
0:02:50if the connection between economics
0:02:52how you feel about the future and how you're language forces you to talk about
0:02:56the future
0:02:57but explain a little bit about what that means
0:03:00so for example you can probably tell i'm training and you know so growing up
0:03:05i realise that constraints families are different in many interesting ways what's a little bit
0:03:11subtle and then i didn't realise too much later is that the chinese language actually
0:03:15forces a chinese speakers to talk about families
0:03:19in subtly different ways to give you example suppose that
0:03:23you want your what your friends come to and say listen you know would you
0:03:27like think about for dinner
0:03:29if you were speak english for you with your friends you could say you know
0:03:32that sounds great really sorry that why have an uncle in town and you know
0:03:36tomorrow i'm gonna go out to dinner with it
0:03:39now we're speaking chinese your friends instead actually chinese the language would force to the
0:03:45include a lot more information than i didn't that i just say so for example
0:03:50there is no gentleman from uncle in chinese instead what we would have to specify
0:03:54what you would be forced by a language all your friends is whether or not
0:03:57this was an arg one your mother subassembly we're father son family and in fact
0:04:02before to say whether or not as with an occupied or a or by marriage
0:04:08so this is actually a very high fundamental characteristic of language and as you see
0:04:12a their the linguist problem jacobson express this past what is that languages differ essentially
0:04:17in what they must convey and not in what in a white so in this
0:04:22sense chinese is forcing you to say your friends about the structure of your family
0:04:28in which really was bigger you could very well think well they don't you know
0:04:32or it's not of their business
0:04:35now let's get back to host and all these kind of european linguists what these
0:04:39linguistic european science foundation discover with when they look at a languages across the globe
0:04:44a lot of global languages what they started was that languages differ in a very
0:04:49fundamental way in the way they force their speakers to talk about the future
0:04:54and they brought out languages in the tube of categorisation one week after week future
0:05:00time reference language or languages like chinese finishing german which don't
0:05:06four speakers in fact which allows speakers
0:05:09speak about the future and basically as if it's the present
0:05:13and other languages like english greedy time interaction vocal strong of your languages for speakers
0:05:19to grammatically realise order speakers in the future or something this really different price
0:05:25so for example what i was just telling you i will talk to my friends
0:05:29about taking my a lot forget or if i will say that in trying it
0:05:33would be very kind of common in very easy for me to just say okay
0:05:37what data tomorrow i with uncle
0:05:40where is to an english speaker i just sounds very strange that a lot of
0:05:44people real when i first of them is less because very strange because many people
0:05:48in this real probably know the english as a dramatic language and that english in
0:05:52german or close cousins and yet as you can see they find is the english
0:05:56and german find themselves on a sentence of this divine
0:06:00they probably speech german one when you think about this differences for example suppose i
0:06:04was gonna try to predict precipitation for tomorrow
0:06:08in german i can very easily say estimated more or morgan rate at s or
0:06:14and morgan is that scott and that sounds we into a single speaker because what
0:06:18i'm releasing is morning is cool or tomorrow entry
0:06:23okay instead of tomorrow will
0:06:27now i can have an effect my on your behavior tend this have an effect
0:06:32on your economics
0:06:33well
0:06:36i'd i didn't white you know a economist with the green the idea we do
0:06:40and that is quickly trying to spell myself of crazy idea by going in looking
0:06:44for as much data is possible around the world and trying to hit it is
0:06:47more like and let me just summarise and the hypothesis that i was testing for
0:06:52you
0:06:52that is can languages that speakers to approximately about the present in the future interesting
0:07:00speakers to feel similarly about the present and future a one like that important because
0:07:05that's true
0:07:06then speakers of those languages hundred time saving should have an easier time studying for
0:07:11exams should have an easier time kind of not of reading and for example should
0:07:16have an easier time quitting smoking we just say as a broad overview that's basically
0:07:21what i find all those patterns i just want to find it's paid in every
0:07:24major region world
0:07:26and the matter how harm trying hit this data to make it go away you
0:07:29can get this pattern to disappear but let's works relevant but these are always countries
0:07:34that what up front of you what is that all these are generally which kind
0:07:37of first world countries
0:07:40you know they tend to have open market the global democracy we were talking a
0:07:43little bit about european financial crisis you can all over there on the right these
0:07:48this is the average savings rate of contours over the last twenty five years and
0:07:51although we over there on the right is greece
0:07:54okay saving just a little bit over ten percent of their g p okay so
0:07:59you know that such as the price we know that they had a problem there
0:08:02is a little bit in like to the kind of mentioned in this audience but
0:08:05if you notice we're the united the where next
0:08:09okay now what i want you to notice that because a colour a i've colour
0:08:14the number of these bars in like those like blue bars of those countries which
0:08:19speak languages that don't make a strong distinction between the present and future
0:08:23okay and is what the system to make it easier to care about future in
0:08:27his yours that will see that
0:08:29very true now this is this only feature rich countries is only a feature of
0:08:34well developed economies no use a much larger set of contra small world and what
0:08:39you see this kind of a downward sloping line indicates that is that exact same
0:08:43patterns in the form
0:08:45basically every major region where if you speak the language that doesn't distinguish strongly between
0:08:50the future in the present you just
0:08:52save a lot more
0:08:54something else that this graph will come show you is something which provides an opportunity
0:09:00to hear this question much more and what is that what i did all these
0:09:05countries be seven countries that used in the middle of the screen user countries with
0:09:10multiple national languages
0:09:12and what supported about that is in many of these countries have multiple actual languages
0:09:17and you can literally trying to find families is basically next boredom each other these
0:09:22countries
0:09:23but speak different languages
0:09:26what is not gonna allows to do well that allows to look inside countries like
0:09:30switzerland where you see people speak german people speak french speaking people who speak at
0:09:35high speed be a family that's be problematic
0:09:38and countries like a totally different multiple well like nigeria where you'll find kind of
0:09:43how the speakers living right next to your room speakers living right next to impose
0:09:49these
0:09:50what am i going to do well he's and he's got the add one more
0:09:54you countries around will have disability and what i'm gonna try to do is do
0:09:58what epidemiologist two and find matched hers affair
0:10:01what exactly well would you could imagine is suppose i was standing up your own
0:10:06state with one point four billion buckets
0:10:09right and actual each of you right and export it would be these buckets based
0:10:13on what's we'll based on the country that your family was born at living in
0:10:18the steps in each of the head of household income we exactly in your household
0:10:23level of education merrill that it turns out in your or six different ways to
0:10:27be married
0:10:28a number of children you find in your household and finally in most powerfully what
0:10:33religion belong to seventy two different will lead
0:10:37i wanna buckets one point four billion so if you're lucky enough might find yourself
0:10:42model but in a bucket with they might one other factor right that might be
0:10:46looking for you have a lot talk about your melodic contour is family
0:10:49a likely for me as a researcher every now and then to fast one themselves
0:10:53in the same bucket but these languages the tree future differ
0:10:58so everything i'm gonna tell if you're and how is true even when we compare
0:11:02and those that are basically on every other dimension identical
0:11:06what we see what we see exactly what we predicted even if the data with
0:11:11that one point four billion but
0:11:13what is that a house all the languages that make a very we distinction between
0:11:19the present in the future are forty percent more likely to save at any given
0:11:23year remember that is already holding the rank
0:11:26they're pointed by the time they were tired and you related twenty five percent
0:11:31they're gonna be twenty four percent less likely to report having smoked intensively that's like
0:11:36more than a pack a day for your and in a given point
0:11:40they're going and not just kind of monetary behaviors but i think about how behaviors
0:11:45they're gonna be thirteen percent like a less likely be medically obese
0:11:49they're gonna be twenty four percent of slot and almost every dimension they're gonna be
0:11:54in measurably better help than the long so groups for a long capacity a walking
0:11:59speed all of these measures of you can imagine cumulative the your cumulative ability to
0:12:04kind of channel that future self
0:12:06i better exercising restraint from smoking all of that was thinking to add up even
0:12:11when tearing families
0:12:14okay
0:12:16i i'd like to leave you with i'd like to leave you with a with
0:12:19this
0:12:21first of all thank you very interesting second of all
0:12:24this is research that's really only just getting off the ground right now kind of
0:12:28a team of linguists kind of be an economist and number of psychologist you're young
0:12:33women experiments to try and identify the psychological mechanism by which these kinds of relationships
0:12:39working and i by all of them i website kind of al
0:12:43keep up to date with what i think is really exciting project investigating what economists
0:12:47have a linguist
0:12:49thank you very much
0:12:54it