Geographical Origins and Economic Consequences of Language Structures

Oded Galor and Assaf Sarid
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Ömer Özak

No 11917, CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers

Abstract: This research explores the economic causes and consequences of language structures. It advances the hypothesis and establishes empirically that variations in pre-industrial geographical characteristics that were conducive to higher returns to agricultural investment, gender gaps in agricultural productivity, and the emergence of hierarchical societies, are at the root of existing cross-language variations in the structure of the future tense and the presence of grammatical gender and politeness distinctions. Moreover, the research suggests that while language structures have largely reflected past human experience and ancestral cultural traits, they have independently affected human behavior and economic outcomes.

Keywords: Comparative development; Cultural evolution; Language structure; Future tense; Politeness distinctions; Grammatical gender; Human capital; Education (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D01 D03 J16 Z10 Z13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-evo and nep-his
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (15)

Downloads: (external link)
https://cepr.org/publications/DP11917 (application/pdf)
CEPR Discussion Papers are free to download for our researchers, subscribers and members. If you fall into one of these categories but have trouble downloading our papers, please contact us at subscribers@cepr.org

Related works:
Working Paper: Geographical Origins and Economic Consequences of Language Structures (2016)
Working Paper: Geographical Origins and Economic Consequences of Language Structures (2016)
Working Paper: Geographical Origins and Economic Consequences of Language Structures (2016)
Working Paper: Geographical Origins and Economic Consequences of Language Structures
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:11917

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
https://cepr.org/publications/DP11917

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers Centre for Economic Policy Research, 33 Great Sutton Street, London EC1V 0DX.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().