Patience and long-run growth

Malte Hübner and Gonzague Vannoorenberghe

Economics Letters, 2015, vol. 137, issue C, 163-167

Abstract: Complementing research on the effect of patience on individual behavior, we present empirical evidence that patience is an important determinant of long-run income differences between countries. To account for a potential endogeneity bias, we instrument patience by information on how languages spoken in the countries of our sample require speakers to encode time. The economic impact of patience and growth is sizable. Our results suggest that increasing patience by one standard deviation raises per-capita income by between 34% and 78%.

Keywords: Long-run growth; Time preferences; Patience (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O43 Z10 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (21)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:137:y:2015:i:c:p:163-167

DOI: 10.1016/j.econlet.2015.10.011

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