Linguistic Traits and Human Capital Formation

Oded Galor, Ömer Özak and Assaf Sarid

No 12894, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: This research establishes the influence of linguistic traits on human behavior. Exploiting variations in the languages spoken by children of migrants with identical ancestral countries of origin, the analysis indicates that the presence of periphrastic future tense, and its association with long-term orientation has a significant positive impact on educational attainment, whereas the presence of sex-based grammatical gender, and its association with gender bias, has a significant adverse impact on female educational attainment.

Keywords: sex-based grammatical gender; periphrastic future tense; gender bias; long-term orientation; human capital; culture; language (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D91 I25 J16 J24 Z10 Z13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 16 pages
Date: 2020-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu, nep-evo, nep-gro and nep-soc
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (21)

Published - published in: AEA Papers and Proceedings, 2020. 110, 309-313

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Related works:
Journal Article: Linguistic Traits and Human Capital Formation (2020)
Working Paper: Linguistic Traits and Human Capital Formation (2020)
Working Paper: Linguistic Traits and Human Capital Formation (2020)
Working Paper: Linguistic Traits and Human Capital Formation (2020)
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